Secretly, he had called her Firefly. Never to her face or to anyone else. She was only Firefly inside his own head where he could trap her and keep her forever and she’d never leave him, no matter how hard she fought to be free.

Some fireflies are unattainable. They float too high and then they’re out of reach. But the ones that seem to fly right into your hand and are content to stay there, those are the ones worth keeping.

The only problem with fireflies is that no matter how many holes you poke in the lid of the jar, they’re always dead by the time you wake up the next morning. Which was also the problem with his Firefly. He kept her in her jar too long, and now she was dead.

Which was a shame, because she had been one of the ones worth keeping.

She had often complained about feeling trapped. Trapped inside her job. Trapped inside their 3rd floor walkup. Trapped inside her mundane life. He, however, had been perfectly content with just staying home with her every night. The exception being one or two Saturdays a month when they went out to eat with some other couple friends of theirs.

The first time she hinted that she dreamed of something bigger, the two were sitting on the couch one autumn evening watching a Travel Channel special on the local cuisine of Sicily. She took the remote out of his hand during one of the commercial breaks and muted the television.

“I want to see the world, Zack. I really do.”

He shrugged and put his arm around her shoulder. “Where exactly do you want to go?”

“All over.” And then she looked at him with her big, green, happy eyes and smile the biggest smile he’d ever seen a person make. But there was longing beneath the surface that he refused to believe she could harbor. So he chose to ignore it. “Will you take me?” she asked him hopefully.

He smiled down at her in return. “Of course.”

That’s how it went from then on. He’d say “of course” and that would be then end of the conversation. For the time being, anyway. To be honest, even the thought of leaving the city scared him a bit. There was no way he’d travel the globe. It was best to just let her keep dreaming. That way, no one was disappointed.

The next time she asked was a couple months later. They had driven two hours upstate to an iced-over pond to try their luck at ice-skating. After a fun afternoon of skating to their hearts’ content, they had piled pack into the car, their breath coming out in excited white puffs.

She looked at him, her cheeks rosy from the cold, and said, “I’d love to see the world. You know what I mean, Zack? Places where it’s snowy all year.” She looked out of the window. “I love the snow.”

He nodded and turned the key in the ignition. “I know.” He smiled and cranked the heat up to the highest setting before turning towards her.

She took both his hands in her own. “Then let’s go!” she said. “Let’s go tomorrow!” She beamed her impossible smile and her eyes filled with hope.

He shook his head and withdrew his hands, placing them on the steering wheel. “We can’t. Not now, at least. Okay?” He looked back at her and watched her smile slowly fade from her face.

She looked down and nodded, her fingers toying with the fringe on the fleece blanket she had thrown over her lap. She nodded. “Okay,” she agreed. “But will you take me? Some day?” She looked up at him again.

“Of course,” he replied as he put the car in gear and began to pull away from the pond.

The last time she asked was nearly two years later.

After dinner one night in the late summer, she abruptly put down the dish she was scrubbing and turned away from the sink to face him. “I want to go somewhere, Zack. See the world. Will you take me?”

He didn’t look up from the newspaper he was reading as he sat sipping an after dinner coffee at the small table in the kitchen. He responded automatically to her request. “Of course.”

“When?” He could hear the smile in her voice and he hated her for it.

He folded the newspaper at the crease and laid it down on the table before him. “I don’t know.” He grabbed his mug by the handle and drained the last gritty sips of coffee from it.

She sighed impatiently and went over to stand behind him, her hands finding their way to his shoulders and rubbing them lightly. “Soon?”

“I don’t know!” he snapped. He shrugged out from underneath her hands and stood, taking his empty mug to the sink where he drooped it in with a splash. He stared into the soapy water and said, “Maybe never. Just stop asking.”

There was a pause in which she sniffed and pushed his recently vacated chair back under the table. Without another word, she turned and walked into their bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind her. After a few minutes, he heard the water running in the bathroom.

She never came out. Not even to say goodnight. Not wanting to disturb her, he decided to sleep on the couch. He tossed and turned, but was finally able to drift off to sleep around three in the morning.

At seven, the alarm that was meant to get her up for work ringed in the bedroom, waking him up immediately. He expected her to hit the snooze button after the first two or three chimes, so he didn’t move.

The alarm rang for five minutes before automatically switching itself into snooze mode. He couldn’t move, just lay there on the leather couch, his side going numb as he stared at the closed bedroom door. He needed to get up and at least turn off the alarm and check on her, but he was scared. Scared of what, he couldn’t say. But there was definitely something to be feared just inside of that door.

When the alarm went of again ten minutes later, he forced himself to get up and go to the door. He stopped, his hand flat on the door’s surface and took a deep breath before pushing it wide open. She hadn’t locked it.

She wasn’t in the bed. In fact, she hadn’t been in the bed at all. It was still made, the comforter not even turned down and no dents in the pillows. He didn’t call her name. He was too worried that she might not answer.

He slammed his hand down on the alarm’s off button, the ringing ceasing immediately. Somehow, he could still hear it echoing in his ears and in the silence of the room. He took another step inside. There was no sign of her. He opened the closet, pushed the clothes on the hanging rack aside, and looked behind the door. Nothing.

He turned to the bathroom. The door was open, but he couldn’t see anything but the toilet and the left half of the marble sink. Holding his breath, he slowly walked into the bathroom, the tiles cold on his bare feet.

She was in the bathtub, the water red with the blood she drained from her wrists. Her eyes were closed, her face, serene. His hand flew to his mouth and he lunged for the toilet, tasting bile in the back of his throat. He retched, tears mixing with the remnants of last night’s dinner in the toilet bowl.

His stomach was empty, but he kept coughing, spit and blood dribbled down his chin. He wiped his mouth with his hand as he flushed the toilet. He shut his eyes as he stood, carefully making sure to face away from the bathtub. His searching hands found the edge of the sink and gripped it tightly. His fingers brushed something and it fell to the floor with a flutter.

He reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at the floor. There was a green sticky note turned facedown on the tile. He bent down and turned it over as he picked it up.

“‘I’ve seen the world.’”