Souls Raped

"Good-bye, farewell and adieu," she told herself, "what does it mean exactly?" She didn't know for sure. She got up from the chair, walked back to Mr. Cooley' office and handed the open card to him.

"Mr. Cooley, will you please tell me, what does it mean exactly, by saying good-bye, farewell and adieu?" Lucia asked.

He looked at the card, folded it up, handed it back to her and said, "Good-bye means good-bye, expectedly to see each other again pretty soon. Farewell also means good-bye, but usually not expecting to see each other again. Adieu is a French word, made up by two other French words, 'a' and 'dieu'. 'A' is the French word for 'to', and 'Dieu' is the French word for 'God'. Adieu means the final good-bye, meeting again only after death, when seeing God."

Lucia flinched. She took the card, left his office without saying a word and tears began to swell in her eyes. She walked into her office and sat down in the chair in front of her computer. She grabbed the white teddy bear that Leslie gave to her on Valentine's day last year, which was still sitting on top of the shelf over her computer, held it tightly against her chest and started crying uncontrollably.

After she finally stopped crying, she picked up the phone and paged Pete Cassidy, who was one of Leslie's closest friends. In just a few minutes, Pete called back.

"Lucia, this is Pete. You want me?"

"Pete, where did Leslie go?"

"He left for Montana two days ago."

"Montana, what is in Montana?"

"Lucia, Leslie liked his job in the Environmental Protection Agency, but after you left him, he had been drinking too much, way too much. He said that he had to quit drinking, but he just couldn't stand to have you sleeping with another man, his first cousin, just about a mile away from where he was; so he started looking for jobs outside Texas on the internet. You have heard of Sterling Fox, I am sure."

"The movie star?"

"Yes. Sterling Fox has a big ranch in Montana and was looking for a foreman to run his ranch. Two weeks ago, Leslie saw the ad on the internet and called him. Fox invited him to spend a weekend on his ranch, and Leslie went. After their meeting, Fox hired Leslie to run his ranch as the foreman. Leslie left town two days ago and I saw him just before he left."

Lucia didn't say anything, but started to cry.

"Lucia, it would be good for him. You have known him for ten years, but I bet you that you had never never seen him so broken-hearted like he was in the past several months since you left him. He started dating you when he was fifteen years old, and you were the only girl he had dated in the past ten years. The world simply crumbled under his feet. It is so sad. Whatever wrong he might have done to you, you will never find another man who would be more loyal to you than he was."

Lucia cried even harder, and both of them were quiet for the longest time without saying a word. Finally, Pete broke the silence and said, "Bye, Lucia, I got to go."

Lucia could tell that Pete, who was 6 ft. 2 inches tall, weighed 250 lbs. and built like a half back, was all choked up like a baby.