Clarity of Thought

“It’s strange…,” Clara thought, “I usually am not one to quantify things so carefully, but it has been nine months and six days.” The memories filtered with the kindness of a soft blur: The brake of the car as he stopped in front of her apartment was her cue. She turn and faced him squarely as she pressed her left hand firmly on his right forearm and said “good night” in a tone of voice that bookended their relationship. He looked back at her with an expressionless face. As she closed the door to his car, she secretly hoped he would realize how much he valued her and pour out an emotional balm to sooth the lacerations from his tongue. However, as she walked into the light of apartment building entryway and climbed the stairs, she knew he would not. She would be left holding on to leftovers of a failed relationship: parking passes, bottles of wine, photographs, clothing, and old phone messages.

For some reason when he was around she felt like she had been taken out of a fog. Things seemed so much sharper and crisp. The associations she had made with him stuck and would not dissipate. Music, places, food, and clothes all had a scent of him. She wanted to wipe his image off the rear-view mirror and yet she always saw his figure fading in the distance no matter how fast she tried to drive away. She found new lovers to replace his memory, she went new places to forget where they went, she erased his old messages to forget his tender words, and she threw away his photos to forget her attraction. But no one brightened her day like him, no one turned her on like him, no one drugged her senses like him, no one infuriated her like him, no one saddened her like him.