Missing you.

Maybe it's always been like this, she said, giving up, tossing aside the wrapping paper and staring intently. Her hazel eyes were dark, like all the light was extinguished.
The long evening had rolled on.
Perhaps it was the alcohol, or the music, of the balloons, or the niggling sense that the banner which read 'Farewell' was too large and too happy. We never really knew why we argued, just that we did.
Why can't you care, she implored. How do you explain to someone that you do, that your heart is just broken, but you can only manage coldness to stop the total breakdown that will ensure once you close the bedroom door and weep into the pillows?
Why can't you care about me enough to ask me to stay?
What right do I have to ask that of you, I'd replied, shaking my head sadly.
She'd taken my hand while we sat on the balcony. The night sky was dark with little pinpricks of light. We'd found Orion's Belt like we used to do as children, and pointed out the Sourthern Cross. In the hemisphere, where I'm going, she said, I won't be able to see either. I nodded.
I stared intently at the photograph on the wall in her bedroom, the very picture I loved so dearly, which showed us as little girls, ringleted and frilly dressed, grinning companionably. Why did the three year old beside me decide to grow up and move on?
The next morning, I got up. I felt dizzy, sick, and I knew it wasn't the alcohol.
The pain of missing is a sickness in itself.