It’s been more than a year since Nick’s girlfriend, the beautiful model Arianne died in a car accident. He couldn’t overcome the loss, he was still thinking about her every day. Why did she have to leave me? Forever? She was so young...
He couldn’t look at other girls, he just felt so broken and alone inside. The media was still portraying him as the ‘’suffering widower’’. And they weren’t actually too wrong with giving him this name. He had wanted to propose her the next evening. He was sure she would love to become his wife. But she never heard the question...
All ended the evening before the proposal...

Arianne was preparing herself for a party. The short amber dress perfectly fit her body. Recently she had become too skinny for Nick’s taste, but he thought it was only because of her new modeling contract. I’m going to feed her when the contract ends. He thought as he came closer to her and put his hands on her waist.
‘’Baby, can’t you stay home with me tonight? Please?’’ he begged while planting little kisses on her neck. She moaned in pleasure but got out of his grip. ‘’You can come with me...you know that I have to go...I have to present some jewelry...’’
‘’I have a radio show tomorrow at 6 am. I won’t get any sleep if I go to the party... You could call the agency and say you’ve caught a cold or something...’’ he turned her to face him. She kissed him passionately, but the kiss lasted only for a second.
‘’Darling, you know I have my duties just like you have yours....but I promise I’ll be back earlier, ok?’’ she cupped his face and looked into his eyes, but as he wanted to say something more, she escaped his embrace and went to the door.
‘’I’ll be back so soon you even won’t start to miss me...’’ she smiled at him and blew an air kiss towards him.

He stood at the window and watched as she drove away in her silvery Porsche. Why did I not want her to go away?
He was already sleeping as the phone rang. ‘’Shit, what’s that?’’ he mumbled and took the phone. ‘’Mr. Carter, I am so sorry to inform you, but your girlfriend, Miss Renaults had a car accident... ‘’ ‘’In which hospital is she?’’ Nick interrupted the official, feeling his heart sink. ‘’Sir, there is no need for a hospital...she was dead as the car hit the rocks on the bottom of the cliff...I’m sorry...’’

Nick could not forget this call. Time has passed by, but the wound of the loss hasn’t healed yet. It was another meaningless morning for Nick today. He was sipping his coffee and thinking what to do wit this day which happened to be totally free...no concerts, no interviews. Suddenly his eye fixed the date on the calendar, which was fixed on the refrigerator.
‘’It’s her birthday today! She would be only 23 today...’’ he exclaimed, but held back his tears. He knew that crying wouldn’t help to bring her back.
Need to do something to make this day special...I’ll go to the graveyard.

It was near dusk when Nick parked his Cayenne near the gates of the graveyard.
The graveyard appeared calm and like out of time and space today. He felt like he had entered a different place. The sand beneath his shoes screeched softly and this sound was a bit scary to him. He gripped the bunch of white lilies for an imaginative security, as a wish, what he had hid all this time came up. If only I could talk to her for one more time. Then I would be released from my pain...God, please, do this for me...I beg you.
Nick was almost done putting the flowers into the vase and looked up and couldn’t believe what he saw. It was Arianne, or better said, the ghostly figure of her. The wind in her hair reflected the coming sunset, but she was not like usually...it was so different. Nick thought that this was just a joke his mind played with him.
‘’Arianne, is it really you?’’ he stuttered, standing up.
‘’Yes, baby boy...I can be here with you for only now...don’t ask why today...’’
‘’Why did you have to leave me?’’
‘’Nicky, the tine had come anyways...’’
‘’No, it didn’t!! You were only 22!’’ his voice was filled with anger.
‘’But anyways I wouldn’t have lived to see 23...’’
‘’Don’t joke with me...he said, getting paler and paler.
‘’I would have died the latest six months...I had a new flare for leukemia...it was a strange form...the cancer cells were spreading so uncontrollable...’’ she sighed and looked down.
‘’Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve gotten the best doctors for you... all needed medication...I had done really everything...’’
‘’Why must you bring up all the mistakes that I’ve made? Now I know I should’ve told you, but I just didn’t want to change your life. And my life. I wanted to live normally, not like a wreck of myself in an oncology ward...’’
‘’But you could’ve lived normally with it...I...I think it hadn’t changed anything... ‘’ he stuttered, still shocked by this revelation. Did I mean so little to her that she didn’t want to tell me?
‘’And Nicky, you still mean a lot to me...I just didn’t want to see you hurt...And the doctor told me that I should be in the ward in three months, because then the pain would get so uncontrollable that I would be on morphine every day...so the car crash was a freeing of my worldly pains...’’
‘’But the pain caused by the accident must have been more terrible than anything else...’’ he shrugged, and then nervously moved his hands over his pants, lightly clutching the little ring box he had in the pocket.
‘’No, I didn’t feel any pain...but there’s one thing I remember so vividly...the skyline looked so beautiful...it felt like it’s setting me free...’’ she stopped for a while, gazing to his face, a compassionate expression all over her face. ‘’And no, I didn’t feel panic or anything...the puddle of oil on the road was just my ticket to heaven.’’

Nick stood there, processing the information he just got. So...it wasn’t my fault that she’s gone?
‘’It was no one’s fault...’’ she said, as if reading his mind. ‘’Call it however you want- karma, destiny...but my life path had to end...and the only reason why I’m here is that I have to set you free.’’
‘’I am free...’’ he protested.
‘’You are still thinking about me, feeling guilty about what happened to me. You are not guilty. I am happy where I am now...’’
‘’You are happy...What will I do?’’
‘’You have to let me go...everything that raises your guilt feeling must go...’’ she lightly motioned to his pocket.
‘’So now you are happy? But you will not forget me?’’
‘’I won’t forget you. But you have to let me go...I can’t come back, but I want to see you happy.’’
‘’How can I be? You are gone...’’
‘’But you life has to go on...and I’ll be still watching you...every time you see the skyline in an unexpected beauty, you can know for sure that I’m free and happy here, in heaven.’’

Nick closed his eyes and forced back tears. He knew that crying won’t help. He has to move on. And now he can, knowing that she has set him free.

She smiled at him and gazed deeply in his eyes. ‘’Now I can go for forever. I love you...’’
He stood motionless, listening to her goodbye. Her figure faded away and finally disappeared completely. ‘’I love you’’ he whispered softly and kneed down at the grave. He took out the ring box.
‘’So...this is how I let you go forever.’’ He opened the box and took a last look at the platinum ring with a heart shaped diamond. This ring had been the symbol to his closeness to Arianne. Now, he was setting them both free. Slowly shifting the white sand near her grave he dug out a small hole. Nick cautiously placed the box there, swiftly pouring more and more handfuls of sand on it. As he saw that it was buried good enough to leave no trace, he stood up and walked back to the path.
‘’Arianne, I let you go. I have to move on.’’ He said to himself, speeding up his pace.

The pain inside him seemed to melt. Now, when he had gotten her permission to let her go he felt better. He knew that with time, there will be no more pain.

As he looked up to the skyline he saw that it was so beautiful, with colors he never could describe. But there was no need for description. He knew that Arianne was happy to set him free.