Nights Are Forever Without You

The first time I heard the song, "Nights are Forever Without You", by England Dan and John Ford Coley, it played softly on the radio of my new 1982 Z28 Camaro as I raced under the star speckled sky to his awaiting arms.  The nights were truly going to be forever without him, because with the rising of the sun he would be leaving this small town, leaving this state, leaving me behind. 

He had broken the news to me in one of our usual late night phone calls.  Although I had wanted him to follow his dreams and his conscience, his words tore at my already aching heart.  He said his mother had told him it was for the best if he would just move on. 

And then there were the horses.  He could go to a real track and ride.  Make a name for himself.  He was good.  No, he was a great rider, maybe one of the best.  I had watched him exercise the young colts the trainer was fitting to take to the track.  Like an elegant dance they galloped around the homemade dirt track in the middle of the buffalo grass, barb-wire fenced pasture.  Taught muscles, the steady pp-thump of their stride, and their long silky manes blowing in the prairie breeze; they were one together he and they.

I would never forget his cheshire grin from ear to ear, dimples glowing with excitement and sweat.  He was as fiery and athletic and ready to run as any of the hotblooded Thoroughbreds he mounted daily.  I knew that he was destined to leave, and I knew that whenever it was it would be too soon for my young heart. 

His declaration that night spurred me into action.  I had to see his smile, touch his face, kiss the lips that first kissed mine one last time.  I couldn't tell him how my heart was breaking.  I couldn't say the words I love you to him.  I couldn't tell him how I really felt, that the only one for me was and always would be him. 

He said he had to leave me, that it was the right thing to do.  For I was married to another and it was breaking both our hearts in two.

Racing through the black of night, I listened to Dan and John telling me that nights were going to be forever without him.  And they were right.  But not that night.  That night I belonged to him and no other.