The sunlight illuminated Adalyn’s tan skin and clothes as she rose from underneath the crumpled blanket. Expecting to see something, or rather; someone, she glanced down to the side of the mattress, only to be left disappointed when she was met with an empty bedside. 

“I didn’t even have time to shed a single tear and you’ve gone,” she thought, inert in reminiscence as she stared at a photograph of her and her former partner together on her desk.

It was as if the memories were swimming around the room and all Adalyn could do was watch.

 “It was as if we were doomed from the start, wasn’t it?”

Those poignant words echoed throughout her mind.

A gentle knock from the outside of the home coaxed her to slide off the bed and saunter towards the front door. Adalyn unlocked and pushed the door ajar to see her ex-lover gazing at her with a tender smile. 

“Welcome home.” slipped out of Adalyn’s mouth out of instinct whereupon she promptly realised her mistake. 

“I’m just here to get some stuff, it won’t take long. I promise,” he said, donning a melancholic expression that nearly undid the smile on his face. 

Sebastian was his name. It meant “revered”, just as Adalyn used to revere him, like how a flower adored the fresh gleaming rays of sunshine after a downpour.

Those sunny days are gone now.

Adalyn nudged the door open, to which he entered what was once the place they shared so many memories with a few folded up cardboard boxes.

“This could be the last time I will ever be here.” Sebastian thought. “This could be the last time I will ever see her again before I leave for good.”

The never-ending memories of them together waltzed upon ubiquitously.

As the couple sifted through the drawers and closets, Adalyn couldn’t help but think,

“It was all your fault, it had to be… 

but… is that so?

No, no

 it must’ve been all me.

Probably.”

After a while of picking objects to keep and dispose of, found at the very bottom of a bureau, lay a photograph of the two in a shattered picture frame. It was of them posing together at an amusement park, smiling ear to ear.

“Wasn’t this the first time we went to a theme park together?” Sebastian chuckled.

“Yeah, it was!” remarked Adalyn fondly.

As the awkward tension set in, Sebastian placed the photograph aside, his eyes diverting from it in dismay. They both knew well that those glowing days – the ones that shone in each other’s memories – would all eventually disappear and be forgotten forever.

Thoughts such as “Didn’t we love each other? Didn’t you love me? Didn’t I love you? Why didn’t we get the same ending I’ve constantly heard about on how love stories go?”  ran rampant throughout Adalyn’s mind. 

“Why did we ever have so many arguments and disagreements? I thought we could be meant for each other, well at the start. I guess we’ll never understand each other; I’m sure by now we’ve had too many heartbreaks. I’m sure some part of me would eventually learn to let go. I hope.”

Once they were finished, Adalyn helped Sebastian haul the boxes and set each of them in his car’s trunk. As Adalyn waved Sebastian goodbye on the house’s driveway for the very last time, she couldn’t help but release a few tears that streamed down her cheeks. Those tears carried every emotion, every thought and every regret that swept by during their time together; from the past up to the present. They bottled up inside Adalyn. As her tears fell, she felt the spite and anger dredged up from the depths of her heart and she realised: Maybe the relationship was meant to fall apart after all.

If only I could go back to the past and never have met you, then I would never have to let you go now.  

‘Welcome home’. Such simple, careless words I spoke. 

But were they wrong? 

I guess so.

“It’s been quite a chilly morning.” she mumbled.