“I’m gonna fall in love with you so fast,” she said, her eyes locked on mine. I could feel her heartbeat against my own. She was wrong, she never fell. I did.
It didn’t come quick and sudden like the movies say. No lightning-strike-epiphany of love. It crept up on me like old age. One day you can see, the next day you’re squinting at road signs. One day you wake up and getting out of bed doesn’t feel as easy. The entire world feels off, but it’s not the world on a tilt, it’s you.
A lighting strike did come. When she left. When she took everything that was hers except her mostly empty bottle of shampoo. The shampoo smelled like lavender. The kind that eases your weary thoughts. Some people have more weary thoughts than fresh ones. Minds that are perpetually damp with real and fictional miseries. Minds like mine. I used her shampoo for the two days after she left. It ran out in a blink, but her presence haunted the apartment for months.
Did you enjoy this story? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to find out when new stories are published.
Learn how to join our Writers Cohort here.
Follow us:
