Goodbye Number X

'Your eyes look different today,' he gazes at me, sincerely puzzled for once.
'Really? How?' I ask, hoping for some kind of response.

I have more than a million visuals running through my head when I finally said goodbye to him, and it took more than a trillion pictures rehearsing the way I would say goodbye.

No, I just knew it would be best to have a face-to-face goodbye, and thank you very much, but I just can't see your face anymore and play your games, without an 'I love you' somewhere on the horizon; read my words: I can't cry that, and leaving smudge marks on your clothes tonight for once, and knowing you would afterwards say 'don't worry' won't do anything to alleviate my own worry - nor would it smudge my character, which you won't succeed at.

Would it mean crying a thousand tears, envisioning the roadside lamps, lining up in their geometrical fashion, dotting up the streets, with his heart in full vision? Or would it mean mine, being crushed blindly, in hindsight?

So I could not follow him, but he has always followed me, without me knowing. On the day and eve of goodbye, the pleasant soul ensued my presence, without an inkling of me knowing it, only, wondering what he is doing, so closely behind...so I wonder...

The story goes, I promised him a certain goodbye (in English, it means our eyes locked, leaving no stone unturned).

After years, I convinced him the coming days never happened, and our heart is as one, but our intentions shall never realise...

So we part, and he races me from the back, me never recognising it's him, until I signal to the right, letting him overtake.

He followed me all the way, taking the long route back home, peeping as he overtook. In a flash, I decided to acknowledge him one last time, then indicated...I was going home.

So it was him, after all.