I wasn’t particularly keen on sitting on the garden path much longer; the ground was rough against my legs, and he was being so quiet. I hated when he did this. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. His golden hair was getting a little long, and he pushed it out of his eyes. He was looking at the sky in that profound way he tended to do. What was so interesting about the sky? It was just like every other evening that summer as the sun descended past the hills. I glared at the billowing clouds and hazy sun. Why was he always looking at it that way? Why couldn’t he stare at me that intently?

I lay back on the bricks, even though I knew my hair would attract dirt and bugs like Velcro. I needed to think. It was always so difficult to talk about feelings with him because somewhere deep inside, I knew my fears and doubts about his love were true. Content in my denial, I just didn’t want to hear him say it. I sat up, my eyes prickling with the threat of tears.

“Can we talk?”
“About what?” he said.
“Us… It’s just that sometimes I feel like I care more about this… us… than you do.”

Preparing for this conversation, I predicted working it out like we always did. But as the words tumbled off of my lips, I somehow knew that wouldn’t be the case, and that this would be the moment when he admitted it was all a lie, everything I thought I knew.
“If I’m being honest, I guess that’s true,” he said, looking anywhere but at the person he was destroying.

Silent, shocked tears rolled down my cheeks as I listened. I never thought the one I trusted with everything would be capable of hurting me like this. I stared at the cracks in the brickwork, as his words began to twist their knife in a slow, clumsy circle through my abdomen.
The slicing gained tempo as he continued, “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Things are getting so serious… I don’t see a future with us.”

He paused for a painstaking amount of time, so I believed he would say something worthwhile. Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I gazed rigidly ahead. My only protection was the veil of hair I allowed to fall over my eyes.

“You always need to be right, and you should maybe find someone with more confidence. Our negatives don’t balance each other out,” were his final words.

Negatives. I couldn’t fathom that he of all people would say this. I thought of him as the most accepting, non-judgmental person I’d ever met. The guy who never said a bad thing about anybody, no matter how obvious their shortcomings were to the rest of us. Sure, there were many things about him I could say were “negatives,” but I didn’t see them as such because these things made him who he was, and I loved who he was.

I sat and waited for something, anything to soften the blow. Praying he would at least utilize a breakup cliché and add, “But you’re great” or “I hope we can stay friends” or perhaps even a hug. Nothing came. I couldn’t look at him. I knew he would be staring at that damn sky again. Unable to formulate thoughts, let alone speak, I let the silent tears fall to the ground like petals from a wilting rose. He stammered, as if attempting to scrape a few more dusty syllables from the bottom of an emotional barrel, but silence overtook him. I couldn’t bear to see such pain wash over his jade green eyes. I had made myself his protector against a world that would never understand him like I did, while leaving my own heart fully exposed.

He stood up, and walked away without a word. I knew he would have to walk five miles to get home because we had driven my car, but I couldn’t move.

When I knew he was gone, a choking sob caught in my throat. As I buried my face in my hands, smearing mascara in jagged lines down my raw cheeks, I realized that everything I knew was going to change. Knowing he loved me had always made everything okay, and now I was left doubting that love. I was shattered. Every good memory felt muddled and blurry, and I couldn’t imagine how I would ever be whole again.
The tears eventually ran dry. I scraped my palms against the ground, attempting to stand and escape from this now haunted pathway. The process of putting one foot in front of the other seemed insignificant as my emotions swirled like an angry hornets’ nest, relentlessly stinging as reality set in. I walked into my house and saw his shoes lying on the floor. I momentarily forgot about the past few hours and laughed as I pictured him walking home barefoot. This perfectly represented everything I loved about him, the carefree innocence and sweet nature that made him unique. At the same time, I saw everything that doomed our relationship in those blue and orange flip-flops. His carelessness and immaturity, along with his inattention to detail, were etched into the details of the plastic.

I carried the shoes to my room, sitting on the unmade bed, and slowly letting the realization and sadness wash over me. I carefully placed them in my closet with a selfish hope that every time he puts on a pair of flip-flops, he will recall the girl who took his, and remember everything he took from her.