Alice

Last time we argued, something inside me broke. I don't know what it was, but I know it hurt when it broke, and it made me do something really stupid.

I proved you wrong.

I took the photograph album out of the cupboard you keep it in, stood neatly alongside the notebook that holds the autographs of all your university friends, and the calendar from 2006, the year we met. You'd ringed the day you first saw me, standing drenched in the rain waiting for the lightning to find me: June 17. I opened the album, turned the pages and found the picture. Then I showed you the picture, and that proved that you were wrong.

I keep dreaming of it, over and over again, and it never changes. In my dream though, you sit next to me on the couch, and open the photograph album yourself, and turn the pages for me. Each page turns so slowly, and I'm desperately trying to stop you, to hold the pages down or close the album or throw it away from us, but I can't move. As we get closer to the page that matters I go cold and I find it hard to breathe, and then you turn the page once more, and I wake up.

And in the mirror across the room from me, I see your eyes glittering with tears, and then you turn away and go again.

I lit a candle for you and left it in front of the mirror in case you changed your mind when you went back to the other side and can't find your way back. When I woke from that dream, you'd blown the candle out. I could smell your perfume.

I've tried a hundred different ways to say I'm sorry.

I'll try a hundred more.