My heart still skips a beat when his name is mentioned. My knees still become weak when I remember his touch on my face and his lips, his sweet hazel eyes gazing lovingly into mine. When we were younger, he would bring me little presents and chocolate and we would lie in the grass and try to count the stars. We knew we couldn't, but just to lie next to one another for all eternity would not have been enough. I remember the first time we held each other in intimate embrace and promised to love one another for all of time. I meant every word of endearment and every promise I said to him. 

I remember when he started to drift away, I could feel the distance between us stretching and tearing at our minds. 'The fight hadn't left us yet' I forced myself to say before I cried myself to asleep, every night I had to remind myself that he loved me. 

We were sitting in his room; sunlight was gently gracing the carpet and illuminating the dust in the air. It was nearly sunset and the smell of summer hung in the air, that was the day he told me he loved her.  I looked into the face I had promised myself to, stared into the face of the man I would die for. Tendrils of dread and anger and hollowness wrapped themselves around my voice and closed my throat. Not a single word crossed my mind, all I could feel was cold. He spoke on but I couldn’t hear a word just the hum of his voice in the background of the screaming in my mind. I closed my eyes as the tears began to fall, flowing from my eyes to my chin then down to the white knuckles of my hands clutching one another. He stopped speaking and we sat in silence as I felt my heart slowly shattering into a thousand shards. 

I stood and left; he didn’t try to stop me.  Have you ever felt pain so intense it crushed you, enveloped your insides, slowed you down and rocketed you forward? Caught your breathe and tossed it over your shoulder then pushed your tears back and down to your stomach and seized your heart and slowly squeezed and you could feel the blood oozing into your chest, but nothing else.