Forbidden Love on Mars

"He was an Adonis. He had the most beautiful body I've ever seen, and that's not even including his face. He looked like a living statue."

My mind was blown. My body was limp. The story, it was...

"He was perfect." Is what I meant to say, but it came out in more of a whisper than anything else.

"No," I said louder and with far more conviction this time around. "No, he wasn't perfect. No one is perfect."

"You know what I mean," she responded. "Stop being so literal." It took a lot not to roll my eyes at her, but I kept them where they were for the moment. "I'm trying to tell you about how I met my husband here and- *cough* excuse me-" She cleared her throat and spat into her cup that sat on the table between us "How I met my husband." I let out a breath as she continued onward with her story once more. "And when you look at him, you can see why he was my first love, why he is still my only love, and why he will be my last love."

She looked down at her mug and breathed deeply before continuing. "You see we met at the club. We were both drunk off our asses and we somehow found each other on the dance floor and started dancing together without words or without even knowing each other's names or anything like that." She laughed softly as if remembering something particularly wonderful about the memory. "It was really just a whirlwind romance from there on out. We dated for two months before we moved in together and three months later we were married."

She looked up at me with sad eyes as she grabbed her mug again and sipped from it slowly as she stared into its contents (that I have no doubt were filled with alcohol). "We had such an amazing life together," she said smiling wistfully at some place far away in her mind. "We went on adventures all over the world, we traveled wherever our hearts desired to go; we did everything together and we loved every second of it!" She chuckled lightly at herself as she continued to sip from her drink and stare into space. Then suddenly the smile dropped from her face and it was replaced by something deep within her eyes that undoubtedly held much sadness behind it. "Then he got sick," she said in a barely audible voice as tears began to stream down her face again. She looked back down at her mug again before looking back up at me once more with pleading eyes that begged me to understand why this entire situation was so hard for her to bear witness to yet again after all these years.

"Oh my God," I said standing from where I sat next to her on the couch in her living room. This whole thing had been haunting me ever since she first told me about meeting this guy, who apparently had been a major part of their relationship for almost 14 years now, but now it was too much for me to handle sitting here any longer while watching this poor woman cry in front of me over what would have been nothing short of some sort of terrible tragedy if someone else didn't step up to make sure his death wasn't in vain! "Is that what this whole thing has been about?" I asked gesturing wildly towards the ceiling above us as if I could somehow reach through the roof itself and grab whatever person who'd given birth to this man who'd made Cynthia cry so many times over the course of their lives together! "Is that why you're telling me all this? You want me to do something about this!?"