one
Cassandra
There’s something so defeatingabout spending the eve of a milestone birthday alone, yet, that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s nearing midnight on May nineteenth, and I’m curled up on the couch with a spoon and an almost empty tub of choc-fudge brownie ice cream, watching Friends reruns. All the while, feeling sorry for myself. I guess that’s what happens when you have a gaping hole inside of your chest. You feel nothing.
You’re forced to just…be.
Every year on the weekend that followed May twenty, we celebrated my birthday. Whether we had a gigantic party with our friends and families, or a dinner with just the two of us, we still celebrated.Hestill wanted to celebrateme.
This year was different, though. This year, we no longer coexisted in the same place that we always had.
Because he left. He took everything I had to give, and he left mebehind.It fucking stung.
No one ever talks about what it’s like tomourna relationship. Everyone expects you to get on with life because it’s "just a breakup". But you’ve just lost the person closest to you.Your best friend.
I've had no choice but to come to terms with the fact that I no longer made him happy, and it’s inevitable that he's going to move on with somebody else.
I hate it.
How do you live knowing somebody else is someday going to replace you?
You don’t.
At least, I don’t think anyone would tell me I’ve been living over the last three weeks. I would call it surviving, and even that’s a stretch.
I’ve been going through the motions since we broke-up and he moved out. My routine now consists of going to work and coming straight home to feel sorry for myself. Some days, I survive on coffee alone. Dinner doesn’t even cross my mind unless my best friend, Jenna, forces me to be social. But even then, I’d move my food around on my plate to give the illusion that it at least lookseaten.
I mostly sit and go through photos on my phone, cry into my pillow, or drink an entire bottle of wine until I pass out in bed and the sun rises, ready for me to repeat my day exactly like the last.
He offered to come back and help me pack my things when our apartment eventually sold, but I told him I didn’t need or want his help.
I shouldn’t be madathim. He didn’t hurt me on purpose, and Iknowthat. But I can't stand the thought of being alone in a room with him for hours, while we pack away everything that once tied us together.
Fourteen years, gone.
Just like that.
Scanning my eyes across our apartment, a hollow feeling washes over me, and I swallow the lump in my throat.All I see is open, empty boxes, ready and waiting to be filled with all of my belongings, and I keep putting it off.
I can’t stay in this apartment.
It was our home; the first we shared together. Every corner of this place reminds me of him in some way. Like that photo of us that still sits on the counter, only now, it’s face down with the glass shattered.
Heaving my body off the couch, I discard my now-empty ice cream container and I stare at the back of the frame. My fingers find their way to the white wooden edges, and even though I’ve spent years memorizing the picture, I still turn it over to see his face.
It was a selfie taken at our college graduation, both of us beaming at the camera with our blue caps and gowns on. I used to love this picture.
The color of our gowns made his royal blue eyes all the more intense, but in the best way.
I loved it until I found the frame laying down on the counter, face up, with the glass shattered and a small piece of paper folded beside it.
I can’t do this anymore, Cassie. I’m so sorry.
He ended our fourteen-year relationship by writing nine words on a stupid piece of paper. I should have thrown the photo away when I threw out the note. But for some reason, I kept it.
I guess I like to torture myself for some messed up reason.
Wiping away a single tear, I take a deep breath, and throw the photo in the trash, head to the couch, and lay back down.
