My vision is blurred by a pale incandescence. My focus finds the bottle green of the living leaves that are dangling on the trees above me. My fingers grasp the cool earth beneath me. My hair feels damp and my skin is cold. In the distance I hear the howl of a wild beast. The dawn is coming but I feel a calling from the night.

I feel an ache fill my hollow chest; an ache for a lost love. A cry escapes me as the darkness of distant memories holds me. The dawn spills golden light into the forest but I am already lost to the night. 

A thrusting ache hits my chest and I fight back the thought: this is my fault. No it isn’t my fault. I was always truthful about how I felt.

My future is suddenly open and uncertain. Once I dreamed of getting married and having kids. Now I can get a job anywhere I want, travel, move to a different country and there would be no obje-

 “I’ll go wherever you want to go.”

Another thought, another memory interrupts my rational. Get out of my h-

 “Why can’t you understand I’m here to stay?”

 Lies. My angry simmers and swells inside of me. I didn’t deserve this. I think of everything that’s happened in the past 3 years. Now this? I feel embarrassed for being so trusting. Next year he’ll be long gone. I can’t wait to stop caring.