Framed by the Light-  copyright 1998, Andrew Hungerford.  and stuff.

I just want a minute to myself, alone with the room. I should leave, yet I feel the need to linger. I stare out towards the hazy skyline, separated from me by the freeways I’ve come to know. I stare out, but I don’t really see, just look.

The light is cold and grey, struggling to fill the room as I sit cradled by the window frame. I think I should be depressed, but instead I’m strangely indifferent.

I sigh, feeling the November chill near the glass, my breath fogging the window slightly.

"Come on, it’s time to go," Jenny says. Time to go, to leave…forever. It’s weird to think that I’ll never be back in this room, never be exactly at this point in my life again. I want to indulge in such thoughts, in such quiet introspection. I want to feel the loss, but I can’t. I’m hollow. And she is persistent.

Jenny walks towards me from the bedroom to this small, windowed antechamber that has been my own place for the past 2 years.

"We’ve got to get going. The plane leaves in two hours and depending on traffic…" Her sentence trails off as I continue my non-committal vigil at the windowsill.

"What’s wrong?" she asks. I glance at her, seeing her small frame almost hidden by the shadows. "What’s the matter?"

‘Everything,’ I want to say, but don’t. ‘I’m old, I’ll never be a kid again, I’ll never be right back here and sit in this very spot, I’ll never stay up late and stare at the lights of the skyline through this window guzzling jolt cola and eating cold pizza trying to finish my damned term papers.’

‘We’re getting married for Christ’s sake. I’m going to be a husband and have a real job and have kids soon, and I’ll never be back to college… and I should be happy about us, or sad about that, but I’m not either; not really. I’m empty and I don’t know why. And it scares me.’

That’s what I want to say. But I don’t.

Instead, I emerge from my perch, stand up, smile and say, "Nothing, at all. You’re right, we should go. I’m sorry." I put my arm around her waist and we walk out of my small room, shutting the door on the cold, grey light behind us.