Cross my heart and hope to die

Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.

Standing on the street corner, a cold breeze blew through a young girl’s brunette hair and she whispered mischievously to her best friend. They shared a giggle before sharing a complex handshake neither girl would remember in the years to come.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” the girls solemnly swore to each other, performing the necessary hand actions. But alas high school would approach and each girl would take two very different paths in life. And as the brunette stood on that exact corner, holding hands and gabbing non-stop to her new best friend the words those two almost forgotten girls pledged to each other dissapeared.

Yet another bitter argument broke out between the seperated Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It was in court, a messy and very nasty fight over custody. As Mrs. Smith sat on her chair she gazed at her soon-to-be ex husband all she could think of were the words he whispered to her at their wedding thirteen years ago.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he whispered with tears in his eyes before slipping the gold band onto her slender fingers.

But it was gone as soon as it came and at the end of the day, does it really matter?

A middle aged woman sat with her head in her hands at in her empty kitchen at her empty kitchen table. Once upon a time her three kids would come bustling in each begging for a taste of the dinner she was busy preparing or desperatly needing her signature on their school field trip form. She missed her children, her family, her life. But, as expected, children grow up and ome cannot expect them to stay home for ever. Each child had left for college, and each child leaving puntured a new wound in her heart. All she could remember was the night her youngest son had a nightmare. He was six years old, the night that monsters lived under beds and all ghost stories were true. The sheets were tangled up and his pillow just wasn't right. Turning it over for him and kissing his childishly plump cheek, her son looked up at her and told her he never, ever wanted to move out of home.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," he promised, gazing up at her with such childish innocence she could feel her heart melting. She wondered if he ever thought about that night. The night he moved out, the night he announced his engagment, the night he tore her heart open by telling her his plans to move to South America. But like everyone else, he probably had forgotten.

A man in his late twenties sat in a darkened room, downing yet another vodka. She had promised to sand by him as he attended councelling and rehabilitation to end his disastous addiction to alcohol. But after three weeks and two days it had all become too stressful and she left him alone and broken hearted, flailing with his habit. When he told her he was scared. She simply brushed a lock of his dark hair behind his ear and gazed into his eyes, melting every trouble he had away as she swore to stand by him no matter what.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," she whispered before holding him long and hard. Now here he was, no evident future ahead of him, drinking even more than before all he could hear were her words and her love.

I'll remember you always. Cross my heart and hope to die.