The sky was bright, blue, and cloudless when Rosetta stood beneath it in the later hours of the following morning. Her shoes scraped against the pavement as she made the short journey from her apartment to the parking lot just outside the building. It was mostly empty, which was to Rosetta's liking. She did not want any eyes on her when she let Ray fly free once again. She had decided that shortly after Kylie, the bird's first caretaker, had declined an offer to meet at a park and share the moment of the sweet little thing's release. Some beautiful acts were best left unshared.
"Okay," Rosetta said after taking a deep breath, setting the large bird cage on the ground and kneeling down to match Ray's eye level. Ray looked right back at her, and it suddenly seemed as though they were seeing one another for the very first time. Rosetta was more eager than ever to let Ray chase the extravagant freedom she deserved, but Ray looked more disappointed than she had before. It was a moment that tasted bittersweet, and would have sounded like a love song in a minor key, had it been a musical composition. "I'm ready if you are," she continued quietly. Ray gave a halfhearted chirp of agreement. Rosetta smiled. It was a sad smile, like that of a parent sending their child off to school. It was a smile that admitted what was best but did not deny that, sometimes, what was best could hurt. Still, it was a satisfying sort of hurt. The kind that swelled from one's heart into the entirety of one's chest, and was more an ache than a sharp, stabbing pain, and prompted the brand of tears that only come from humanity's most unique combination of emotions: pride, joy, and letting go.
Rosetta opened the door of the cage with steady, careful hands and offered a single finger for Ray to perch on. The bird hopped onto her hand, squeezing its nimble toes tightly around her finger as it did. It reminded Rosetta of the way the dearest friends in her favorite fantasy sometimes squeezed one another's hands as they walked into a battle that they were not sure would have a happy ending. A trifle of comfort, a promise that things would be okay (even if that promise was doomed to be broken from the start). The difference, though, was that this battle was life, and though some lives have happy endings, they all end with the same cliché line, “Goodbye.” Perhaps that was why the word always felt like a blow to the stomach when it was spoken in times of sorrow. Perhaps that was why some people died before their hearts stopped beating. Perhaps the resurrection of such people was possible, and such resurrection was what most referred to as "second chances." It was a clinquant notion.
"Go on," Rosetta urged Ray, rising to her full height and lifting her hand skyward. "It's okay if one of us crashes one day. We'll be okay. If we hit the ground, then we can only go up from there, can't we?"
There was a blur of movement, and Rosetta felt the brush of a wing against her cheek as Ray dived from her perch on Rosetta's hand and took to the air, meeting the world with open wings that flapped wildly for the sole purpose of taking her away from this place and finding a new adventure to fly through, a new town to sing the same old songs to. She climbed up, flying with impressive speed toward the resplendence of the sky. Rosetta watched until Ray was no larger than a speck of dust. She had fallen victim to two of the greatest tragedies of all: time and distance. Now, miles of space stood like armed guards between Rosetta and the bird she had grown so fond of, and the little time they had spent together had passed in the blink of an eye. Those two tragedies were the destroyers of many things, and they inevitably reigned victorious over the unlikely correspondence of a wounded girl and a wounded bird, but their victory did not always come at the expense of their victims, Rosetta decided. Sometimes the end of an era was for the best. Even if it hurt, the joy of the memories was, more often than not, worth the pain.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, Rosetta could not help but think that it's illumination paled in comparison to the splendorous achievement of Ray that day. In the midst of a broken wing, she had kept the courage to fly—even to soar—leaving no room for fear or regrets. Ray's incredible resilience was the brightest thing to grace the sky on that warm pastel morning. Rosetta was sure of it. No burning star could even hope to compare when placed beside a heart that was aflame.