They had agreed, she and he, to meet upon the faraway shores of a small island. Her plane departed from Miami, his from London and both of them bound for warm clear waters.

It had been more than two years.

The two planes smoothly descend to the same glistening tarmac while both reminisced on the beginnings leading up to today. The affair, strange as it were, had been born at the behest of those closest. It's for their own good, they had been told. And, after a while, they had believed it themselves. Afterall, the ease of a thing is often its primary allure.

There had been no effort in forming their relationship and, likewise, there had been no strain. He would be leaving the country soon, an emotion-padding fact which had been understood from the start and hung like scented gossamer in-between them.

Neither knew when, or even if, he would ever return and this reality was to be accepted.

The internal forces which compelled him to fly were, for her, the very elements which would not allow her to leave. There had been no discussion of their up-coming separation. There had not been anything to say. So he went from her side, but she not from his life.

Here and now, the aircraft’s wheels touched earth, as did one life reconnect with the other.

Neither he, nor she, felt any nervousness over the reunion. He, in particular, wondered if numbness was a bad sign. So pushed upon one another had they been that, to one, the presence of the other felt almost compulsory. They shared a completely comfortable partnership in nearly every aspect, but that familiarity had come at the sacrifice of thrill.

There was no counting the husk of each day. Each of them shared a sense of their inevitable departures, but the awareness did not come accompanied by sorrow. And all the while an inability to truly speak persisted. The countless words that had never before been uttered now formed a great unseen blockage. There was simply no way.

The airport venue felt cliché for their parting, but non-the-less that wass where each said their goodbyes. Island time had relaxed them. Days passed beneath that warm tropical sun had transformed their skins, but nothing beneath.

Stepping to the metal ladder, the plane gyrating the air above, he told her that he loved her.

What he did not say was what they both clearly heard; goodbye.