When they first met it all seemed so perfect. He was everything she could have ever wanted and she was the center of his world. They had both believed with all their heart that it would last forever, but they spoke the word forever too soon. Now, the very thought of him made her queasy. Her smiling face hid the true emotion she felt, for deep down she was feeling something so painful that she could not find the words to describe it. As she looked around her house, the one he left, she not only sees objects, but memories left behind.

As she walked into her room, she caught something out of the corner of her eye. A black baseball cap sat on her wooden dresser. She carefully picked it up, caressing the silhouette of the cap, wondering how he left it behind --- it was his favorite. Whenever they had gone out somewhere, he would wear the hat or debate whether or not he should wear it. He was constantly concerned with his appearance, which to her was silly. She had always thought he was wonderful just the way he was. When they first met, she remembered being amazed by his soft, tan skin and how his blonde hair always seemed to glisten like gold in the sun. As she looked into his deep blue eyes, she felt as if she were drowning in them. To her he seemed to be perfect, for there was no appearance of any flaw or one imperfection in sight. To him, however, what she thought never seemed to be enough. He was always thinking he had to be better, even though she thought he already obtained perfection. It seemed like the more time they spent together, the more he wanted to impress her. Yet, when he did this, she felt the true him was being hidden. Instead of seeing someone she had completely fallen for with all her heart, she was looking into the eyes of a stranger.


When she walked into the kitchen, she had forgotten they were there. The bouquet of red roses he had given her still sat in a crystal vase in the kitchen. The roses were now turning dark, almost black in color, and each petal was beginning to slowly wilt and float to the ground. She remembered the day she had walked into the house and saw the beautiful bouquet; she could instantly smell their light, floral aroma. Each rose had been perfectly shaped and the red color was so vivid that it looked as if an artist had hand painted each and every one. Now, she looked at the roses much like the feelings they had. In the beginning, their love seemed so picture perfect, as if it couldn’t be any other way. Yet now, the vibrant red color of the roses was gone just like the exciting feelings that they had shared and the rose petals fell as easily as the tears she now shed.

After a while, she left the roses, for she could no longer bear the sight of them. She decided to go running to get her mind off things and began tying the laces of her white and blue running shoes. She stepped out of her house onto the hard, white pavement. In the beginning she just started off at a jog, but as pictures and memories appeared in her head she began to run faster and faster. Her line of vision became narrowed down to the path ahead of her and her surroundings became nothing but a blur. Her labored breathing and pounding of her footsteps became the only sound she could hear. Suddenly, she stopped and began to wonder why she had run to this place. It all slowly hit her as she stood in front of the gray-stone bench with little pink and purple flowers all around it. It was a memorial to someone who had passed in her community, yet to her it was something much different. Now, to her, it was a memorial of a more personal loss. This was the last place she saw him, the place where it all had ended. It was here that she felt completely lost, as if her heart was being torn like someone ripping apart a piece of paper and tossing the tiny pieces into the wind to be scattered and never to be put back together again.
She took one last glance at the bench and ran home. The tears were streaming down her face as she entered through the tall, wooden door to her house. She closed the door behind her, hoping to block it all out, yet knowing it was eating at her every second like a parasite. Her body slowly slid down the back of the door and to the tile below. Her stomach tightened as she curled up into a little ball, holding her legs in her arms. There was no stopping the tears that were falling down her face. It seems that it was not necessarily the goodbye that hurt, but the flood of memories that followed. It seemed her world was like the ocean waves, crashing in from every direction. She wondered if the sea of emotion would ever be calm and peaceful again. She thought she was stronger than this, yet each and every day she would have to face everything that was left behind.