She steps outside a small downtown bar, it's a cold, rainy Sunday evening, water glistening on the empty street in front of her. She sits on an old wooden bench just outside the doors, admiring the way the rain looks as it falls in front of the streetlights, taking in the faint sound of music pouring out into the sidewalk next to her. There’s people existing all around, some running for shelter from the rain, some stumbling in their heels, some passionately embracing one another without a care in the world. She sat by herself, examining each interaction she witnessed, even taking in the way the scent of the rain mixed with those standing across from her smoking cigarettes in their own worlds. Life seemed eerily peaceful to her, almost as if it was standing still. She closed her eyes, letting this insignificant fragment in time take her over, the stillness of it all. “No way” she hears from a distance, it's a voice she hasn’t heard in years, one she’d never forget. Her eyes quickly open, in shock of the familiar voice. “It is!” It says excitedly. Turning her head to the side, she sees a sight she believed she’d never see again, him. He’s aged a little, his long dark hair, now buzzed and slicked back in a beanie, no longer hiding those incredible green eyes. His piercings are absent, tattoos hidden under a black leather jacket that’s glistening with rain, he looks the same, yet so different all at once. Her heart sinks, it's been years since their last encounter, since their final goodbye. “I’ll be damned” she says in shock as she rises from the bench, nervously standing as the familiar soul excitedly runs up to her. “How have you been” he says with a smile as he leans in for a hug, embracing her with a warmth she hasn’t felt in what seemed to be an eternity. “I can’t believe it's you” she says as she clings to him, her mind replaying the past like a movie, reminding her of who they once were. “I could say the same.” He says softly, pulling away from her and gazing into her eyes that hold a sea of memories before him. “Last I heard, you were traveling on your motorcycle, I had no idea you were back in town.” She says nervously, trying with everything inside of her to keep from getting lost in the eyes she once fell so madly in love with. “Yeah, I went off to clear my mind for a few years” he tells her, triggering the memory of the last time he spoke those very words, the last time they ever existed as an “us”. “I hope you were finally able to.” She says with a faint smile, trying to mask the pain that slowly is bleeding through to the surface of her mind. He smiles at her for a moment, his eyes studying her as if trying to read chapters of a new book. “It was good to see you.” She says shakily, quickly turning away from him to step back inside the lively bar behind her. She walks calmly to the entrance, the neon signs casting colorful hues onto her face. “I never stopped loving you.” She hears from behind her. Immediately, her heart stops, her eyes swell with tears, and her nerves skyrocket. She knows silence won’t win this game, there’s no way to pretend she didn’t hear him, or to walk away as if nothing ever happened. She slowly turns around to face him, he’s standing just a few feet away from her, the rain falling onto the shiny leather of his jacket, his breath a misty cold fog in front of his face. “It was always you, I was just too stupid to see that.” He continues, stepping closer to her. She’s frozen in time, she used to wish for this moment, him coming back and saying these words to her, but those wishes were long gone, even if the memories still ached in her soul. “You think I stopped loving you?” She questioned, her voice cracking as she fights to contain the tears she knows will inevitably fall. “I’m not sure what I think” he mumbles, his eyes anxiously looking away from her, being lit up by the pink and blue lights pouring from the windows in front of them. She sighs heavily, she’s waited for this chance for so long, to tell him everything. “I never stopped loving you. Hell, I never stopped wanting you.” She says as her eyes look to the ground, trying to gather her thoughts as quickly as she can. “I still want you” he says quietly as he moves closer towards her, his tone serious, one she’d only heard on a handful of occasions. “I’ve hoped for years we’d run into one another again, that we’d get this chance” he continues as he pushes a strand of her curly hair behind her ear. His words seem to echo around her, causing tears to stream down her face. “I love you, I’ve always loved you. But you’re too late.” She says through her tears, her eyes meeting his yet again, watching as they fade before her. She pulls her hands out of her pockets, and lifts her left hand up into view, revealing a beautiful diamond resting against her ring finger. His expression shifts to shock, eyes wide, jaw dropped, for once it seems he’s showing a genuine emotion. “I thought you’d wait forever for me” he says to her. “Forever is a precious thing, and you took advantage of it for far too long.“ She expresses as she wipes her tear stained face. “I guess our forever doesn’t exist in this life” he tells her as he begins to shed tears of his own, his voice shaky much like her own. She moves in close to him, studying the man she once gave everything to one last time. He looks down at her as tears run down his face, she reaches up to him one last time, leaving a gentle kiss on the side of his cheek, a parting gift she knows he’ll cherish for an eternity. “Maybe the next life we’ll get it right.” She says, stepping away from him as she recalls memories of when they were teenagers in love, when sex on the beach and smoke breaks while playing piano were a regular occurrence. “Goodnight, my love” she tells him as she turns away, leaving everything that once was.

And walking towards what could be.

#movingon #lettinggo #heartbreak #breakup #inlove #younglove #anotherlife #lovestory #prompt #letgo #future #itsover #toxiclove #toxicrelationship #iloveyou #inlove

TheTiredWriter

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A Glimpse Of Us

12:47am

She sits on the edge of their bed, head rested in the palms of her hands. Reliving the thoughts that have crept into her mind the past several days as she hears the faint roar of a familiar engine pulling into the rain soaked driveway outside their home. Tears begin to stream down her face as she hears the sound of the front door opening, footsteps she knows all too well echoing in the eerily silent home. “Babe?” He calls out from down the hallway. “In the bedroom.” She replies softly, wiping her tear stained face in a sad attempt to mask the whirlwind of emotions she’s been spiraling inside. “Hello” He says as he walks through the open doorway, his voice calm, relaxed as if nothing has happened. “Where the hell have you been?” She questions with a sigh, her eyes studying the person she was once so madly in love with, now suddenly seeming more like a stranger than the one she’d planned her life with for so many years. “I told you, I had to clear my head.” He says with an eye roll. She scoffs in reply, “It’s been eight days!” She says loudly through gritted teeth. Frustration captures her mind, as rapid flashes of their life play through her heart, knowing the outcome of this won’t be anything she ever envisioned for herself, for her life alongside him. He runs his fingers through his hair, pushing the dark strands backwards, revealing the clear annoyance in his expression. “Don’t start this with me again” He mumbles as he stares at the ground, an irritated smirk beginning to form across his face. “You promised me we weren’t going to play this game again” she tells him with a slight hitch in her voice, struggling to hold back tears that have been hidden for far too long. “I promise a lot of things, don’t I?” He replies sarcastically as he turns to walk out of their bedroom, the one that was once filled with the scent of their love, now a place of turmoil and anxiety. “Don’t fucking walk away from me!” She yells as she runs after him, determined to solve this once and for all. “What the hell do you want from me?” He fires back, quickly turning around in the hallway to face her. “I want you to actually give a fuck again!” She cries, “I want us to be us again! I want the person I fell so deeply in love with to make me feel at home again, I want our love to feel like love again, not this sick fucking game of you disappearing for days on end doing god knows what, and god knows who, while I sit here scraping the bottom of the fucking barrel to try and figure out the best way to save this one-sided romance that we should have let die with our youth.” She finishes, now within inches of a man with a hollow expression, as if he couldn't care less about the situation at hand. “Look, I told you from the start, you never had to wait for me.” He tells her, nearly emotionless, knowing this will get under her skin far more than snapping back at her. “Will you stop trying with that stupid mind game.” She laughs as tears begin to fill her tired eyes again. “I’m so sick of you using that same sentence on me every time you know you’ve fucked up. I’m tired of you thinking that if you tell me this is all my doing I’ll crack beneath you and let it go, there is no more letting this go!” She shouts so loudly it feels as if her lungs might burst, her heart no longer able to hide the pain it’s been enduring for years at this point. “It is your fault! You chose to stay every time, It has been your choice to sit here with me even when I told you I was in no place to give you what you wanted. Stop acting like such a fucking child” His words slice like the sharpest blades on earth, sticking in her like fatal wounds, sealing their love story one final time. “You’re right, I did choose to stay.” She says calmly, almost as if there’s no more heart to give. “I chose to stay because I saw the potential you possess. I saw the man you could be, the one I know you’re capable of being.“ She tells him, her voice cracking like shattered glass. “I’m not that man.” He tells her blankly. She closes her eyes, feeling the tears of defeat flow down her cheeks, knowing this was the breaking point everyone warned her would one day come, that she could no longer run from once her soul grew so exhausted from the pain, it would have no choice but to set itself ablaze. “Don’t you think I know that?” She snaps as she turns away from him, staring at the framed photos of their life lining the walls of the hallway, the echoes of the people they used to be taunting her with no remorse. “I have been in love with the idea of you since I was seventeen. Because seventeen-year-old me, saw the person nineteen-year-old you could become. I saw the layout for a beautiful life in you, I saw everything I had ever dreamt of inside your eyes, but none of that ever existed, because the person I fell in love with was never there, he was never real.” She tells him in the most heartbreaking tone, knowing damn well these words could never be taken back. She turns back around to face him, the shock of her words still sinking into him. Taking in the expression on his face and knowing after months of silence, her words finally got through, but it was far too late for repair. He slowly walks down the remainder of the hallway, following the dim lit light pouring out from the kitchen. She takes a deep breath as she listens to him moving around just a few feet away from her, hearing a drawer open up, followed by the faint sparks of a lighter. She pulls herself together enough to finally follow him, walking down the hallway that now seems a hundred miles long, turning into the kitchen that’s illuminated by nothing more than a light over the stove. His slender figure is resting against the kitchen sink, the smell of cigarette smoke begins to fill the air, as the haze starts to twirl above him. His head is down, face masked behind his long dark hair, as he takes another drag off the newly lit cigarette between his fingers. “Throwing in the towel takes a hell of a lot of effort, you know?” He says quietly, almost tauntingly. She walks up to him slowly, her movements gentle and calm, she embraces him in a way she hasn’t thought of in months, one she wasn’t sure she even had left inside of her. “But breaking myself everyday just to hang on to something that no longer exists takes even more” she tells him as she rests her head against his shoulder, taking in the scent of Newports and his cologne. He sighs at her words as one hand gently rests on her waist. “So this is it?” He questions with an exhalation of smoke. She holds onto him tighter, fighting back tears as she mourns the future she’ll never get to have with the person she believed held her forever. “This was it a long time ago” she tells him as she pulls away, resting one hand on his shoulder, and using the other to push his hair out of his eyes, revealing the green hue that always stole her heart. “I never deserved you.” He tells her as he rests his forehead against hers. “That’s the thing,” She begins with a sigh. “You never did, but I still gave you every chance to become the man who did.” She tells him as she slowly caresses his jawline. He gazes into her eyes, his thumb now resting on her chin, he pulls her into him, giving her the softest kiss she’s ever felt, one she never thought she’d feel from him again.

One final goodbye.

#sadlove #sadlovestory #lovestory #nonfiction #heartbreak #poetry #poet #poem #freeverse #breakup #lettinggo #younglove #love #lovepoem #romance #romantic #sad #sadstory #aglimpseofus #shortstory #short #shortpoem #writer