I remembered her Leaving.

I remembered the ache in my heart at our parting, and then that thought stopped my recollection in its tracks.

To my utter and complete horror, I realized that while I remembered it,

I couldn't feel it. It was as if there was a thick, syrupy mass clogging the inner workings of my emotions. I had a picture of her kissing me goodbye, but I couldn't taste her lips.

I concentrated harder, trying to squeeze out the sensations. I remembered the feel of her naked body beneath me as we pumped in the slow union of love, but to my horror, I couldn't exactly recall her face.

I remembered THAT I was feeling in love. But now, those warm fuzzies in my stomach were gone, and I couldn't remember WHAT it felt Like to be in love.

My true Love was gone.

Was it ever real?

It had been an intense day. I'd gone from the emotional pain of my fight with Brianna to the harrowing fright of jumping into the untamable sea. And after such stark darkness, I'd needed to feel something good, something positive.

Was my delirious euphoria of falling in Love with Claudine real love?

Or was it just the emotional high after surviving what could be termed a near-death experience?

And if it was real, why couldn't I remember exactly what her face looked like? If I was really in love, why didn't I feel that strong desire to be with her right now?

My forehead wrinkled as my brain finally caught up to me, some eight hours late. My shoulders sagged then, and I felt like I had aged another five years overnight. I wasn't in love.

Last night, Claudine and I had shared a moment, several moments in fact. They were beautiful moments, borne out of the need to reach some catharsis after a uniquely personal and frightening experience that no one else could understand.

Brianna was nowhere around for me to share with. Claudine's family could feel relief at knowing she was safe and still never truly comprehend what kind of fear was in her mind out in the open water.

We were the only ones who knew what it really felt Like to be out there. And last night, we had come together to purge our tensions and our emotions over the experience in a whirlwind of passion. It was a truly beautiful moment for us.

And the moment was now over.

A lyric came to mind just then:

«+. Any moment, big or small / Is a moment, after all. ... Seize the moment, skies may fall / Any moment. ... Days are made of moments / ALL are worth exploring. ... Many kinds of moments / None is worth ignoring. ... All we have are moments / Memories for storing.

Our lives were these moments. But the song ended with:

«+. Leave the moment, just be glad / For the moment, that we had.

There was no way Claudine and I could ever work out. Putting the age aside, she was going home to France. I wasn't about to pick up my life and move there, and I couldn't expect her to leave her family for me.

Maybe if her school life brought her back to the States, we could see.

But even then, I wasn't in love with her, and I was pretty sure she wasn't in love with me. She was grateful for my rescue. And she had passionately made love with me, probably out of her need to feel something 'good' after the ordeal she'd been through. But that's not the same thing as love.

It was telling that when Claudine had left me last night, we had made no further plans to meet. In my happy delirium last night I may have dreamed of happily ever after, but they were just dreams; not real.