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            She bowed her head, and said, “I found the engagement ring in your chest of drawers and knew you were going to propose to me but I knew I couldn’t accept.  So to keep from disappointing you I left school when I got sicker.”

            “To keep from disappointing me!?  Adrianne, you hurt me,” as he put his right hand on his chest.  He looked at her.  She said, “I’m sorry Bernard.”

            He started walking toward her and when he got within arms reach of her, he reached out to touch her but stopped.  He said, “Can I touch you, please?”

            She bowed her head.  He reached and hugged her tightly smelling her, the scent of a rose.  Adrianne felt like she did the last time he hugged her the day before she went home sick.  Adrianne returned his hug as well.  She turned her head for him to kiss her, and he did.  As he was kissing her, she started to cry as he did the same.  He ended the kiss and said, “Adrianne, why did you leave me? Why?”

            She looked at him and said, “Bernard, I had no choice.  You’ll see one day.  You’ll see.”

            He turned to kiss her once more and the more he kissed her, the more he wanted more than just a kiss.  Adrianne didn’t discourage his desire.  She wanted him as much as he wanted her. 

            She pulled him to a soft thicket of grass a few feet away and they laid there and made love passionately as his truck continued to run and the music from the CD continued to loop.  As the song, “The Color of Love” by Boyz II Men played again, Bernard looked into Adrianne’s eyes and said, “You know I love you,” as he pushed her hair out of her face.  She said, “I know Bernard.  I love you too.  But you’ve got to move on and find someone that’s deserving of your love.  You have a big heart, and there’s someone out there deserving of it.”

            He said, “You have it Adrianne, you’ll always have it.”

            She said, getting up, “Bernard, I need to be a memory for you.  Please find someone and love her just as you loved me.”

            He stood dressing and looked at her, he said, “Adrianne…, ” but before he could finish his plea, she held her hand up again and shook her head.  She said, “Bernard, go on back to Montgomery.  Remember that I love you and find that special one, okay.  You’ll be fine.”  She smiled at him and brushed her hand across his face.  She looked at him deep in his eyes and said, “I love you.”  She had tears in her eyes and they ebbed down her cheeks.

            He reached for her hand and held it close to his face.  Then he hugged her again.  She said, “Bernard, you’re special.”  He looked at her deeply in her eyes.  He said, “Adrianne…” She said, “No Bernard. No.” Then she stepped away from him and said, “Go back to your truck and drive safely back, okay.” 

            He said, rubbing his hand down his face, I’ve got to finish fixing my tire.”

            She looked at him and said, “It’s fixed.”

            He turned back to his truck, still parked idling in the thick dark night along the side of the deserted road and noticed his truck was no longer jacked up on one side.  He turned back to Adrianne and she was gone.  He turned completely around, looking for her.  He said, “Adrianne!”  No answer, just the crickets and frogs responding to his cry.  He turned around again, looking for any sight of her, and stood there a while.  Finally, he started toward his truck.  When he got to it, the tire was fixed.  He walked around his truck and got in.  He looked over in the passenger’s seat, and there was a single red long stemmed rose lying on the seat.  He sat there a moment and thought, was I just dreaming or was that reality?  He sniffed the rose.

            He changed the CD from looping for the umpteenth time to the radio.  The night DJ said as he put the truck in drive and drove off, “Good evening listeners, it’s ‘nightthirty’, as the old folks would say,” he chuckled, “now let’s listen to “Crazy Love” by Brian McKnight.”

            As Brian McKnight crooned through the speakers, Bernard felt relieved, sad, happy, but inspired that he could let go of Adrianne, and finally move on with his life.  He was able to say goodbye to her, finally.

            Bernard finished his doctorate degree and progressed into acquiring a dean position at one of the major HBCU schools in Louisiana about two hours away from his parents.

            A few years later, Dr. Bernard Norton did find that special person.  They married and started a family.  Dr. Norton became the president of a mega HBCU in the Washington, D.C. area.

            One evening, driving through Virginia, after a speaking engagement, Bernard detoured to Dalton, and stopped at the cemetery where Adrianne was buried.  He went to her grave site and knelt down and put one single long stemed rose on her grave marker.  He said, “Adrianne, thank you and I still love you.”

The end

g.britton-Johnson