Chapter One
I closed my eyes and rubbed them hard. I had to stop thinking about him. I had to just let him go.
I got up and walked, I just walked. My hands were deep in my pockets, my head bent down. I wanted him with me, his arm around me, his mouth close to my ear as he whispered to me that he loved me. I wanted us to be dancing in the moonlight, laughing uproariously and waking up the people in the apartments nearby. I wanted us to come back to our apartment and have red wine and then make love.
The moonlight spilled over me. It was cold. It wouldn’t be as cold if he was here, enveloping me in his perfectly shaped arms, holding me closely to him.
I sat on a park bench and leaned my head back, the cold metal touching my neck.
It was dangerous to be out alone, at this time of night, in a deserted park.
I let my eyes close as I imagined us together on this park bench, his warm arm replacing the coldness on my neck, his lips touching my hair.
I felt his hand on mine. We held each other for a moment. Then he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
I told him that I didn’t forgive him, that I couldn’t. “You left me,” I said aloud. “You left me and moved on.”
I reached for him and opened my eyes. He was gone. There was no sweet voice in my ear, there was no warm hand on mine. He was not there, and nor would he ever be.
* * *
I must have fallen asleep, all alone in the park on that God-forsaken park bench.
When I woke up, it was cold, and I was just as wet as the bench was from the overnight dew. The sun had already risen, and people were enjoying themselves in the park.
When I got up, my limbs ached to remind me of the stupidity in sleeping on a park bench. I stretched, wincing as I did so. I would certainly never sleep on a bench again.
I got up and started walking. My hair was disheveled, my apparel sodden, and I must have looked like a dead woman, but no one asked me anything, and I contently ignored them.
People were already walking their dogs, jogging, children playing with their parents or among themselves. I stopped to gaze at some children having a small picnic for a moment. When they saw me, they got up and ran for their parents. I combed my fingers through my hair to try and neaten my appearance, then moved on.
I still didn’t want to return to our—my—apartment. I hadn’t been there since the funeral, and I was still in my black clothing. During those two days--from the day I had gotten the dreaded call to the day of the funeral--I had cried as much as I ever had in my life.
I had to clean myself up. My apartment was only a short distance from here. I hurried to it, abandoning the park I had always loved and nearly running down the sidewalk.
I burst into my apartment ten minutes later. Once in the doorway, I froze, fear prickling on my skin. My hand was still on the doorknob. I could have slammed it and gone back to the park.
I forced myself to step inside, and I slammed the door very firmly behind me. The sound reverberated throughout the room. I shuddered.
It seemed so empty without him. Whenever I went out alone and came back, he had always been here, waiting for me with open arms and a kiss.
I looked around. All his things were gone, making the apartment seem impossibly bare, the stark white of the walls blinding me. I dropped my keys on the coffee table that sat in the middle of the small room and went down the small hall to our—my—room.
I hesitated as well when almost inside the room. There was a double bed, blankets still rumpled and all over the place from a few days before. There was the phone, lying on the floor from after the time I had gotten the call.
So they had come to take his things and hadn’t neatened anything else.
I slowly peeled off my wet clothes and tossed them in the garbage. I never wanted to use them again.
I went into the bathroom branching off from the bedroom. They had left his razor, the one he used every morning as I showered.
I closed the door to the bathroom and went into the shower, pulling the curtain shut. I turned on the water. It was cold.
I leaned against the wall and cried.
* * *
I stepped out of the shower half an hour later, looking like a prune. When I glanced at myself in the mirror, my eyes looked tired and dull. I brushed my teeth slowly, watching his razor as though he would suddenly come in, pick it up, and start shaving as he talked about what he was planning to do that day.
Though it was a Monday, I did not want to go to work. I did not want to return to the dreadful routine of life, even though this routine was disrupted because of him. I did not want sympathy. I did not want Cynthia to come up to me, a sad look on her face as she told me she was sorry.
I dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and found the sweater he used whenever the heating broke down in the winter.
I pulled it on over my head and slipped my feet into sneakers. Today, just for today, I would go and enjoy my life without work.
((I kept on editing it and editing the edition, and I know I should have more in a first chapter, but I'm not. For the rest of the story though, I think the chapters will be MUCH longer.))
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