Old friend? More like old enemy.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: February 3, 2024

Character: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Human
Age: 33
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

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I think that the only person who might truly have the names of all the people who ever made it to the bunker is Doc Florence. Though I suppose that any of the military folks who possibly had access to these files might know as well. Not that it matters to me. As a matter of fact, I don’t care who knows and who doesn’t. I just wonder, at times. Especially when I find myself coming across—so to speak—someone I hadn’t ever seen since the snow first happened.

I don’t know that I can really say that I came across her. Is that even the way to say it? Doesn’t matter, it’s fine. I saw her across what now passes for a street. It’s pretty much just jungle-floor everywhere and it’s taken some time to get used to it, but it’s not been a bad thing. I sort of like the way things are now, in a way. Sure, I miss plenty of things but I’m alive, I have an important person at my side, and I have four-legged company too.

I didn’t spend that much time where I stood while she was across the way. We’d parted on fairly bad terms the last time I’d seen her—when I’d been twenty. It wasn’t all that long after I met Flint that I had a falling out with her. She’d always come around while I was putting together jewellery for others—commissions, most of the time—and she’d ask for something for herself. Once or twice, I put something small together for her and then let her have it.

After that, when she asked for a little something, her words those, she would request something that required more time from me and more material. She also tried to puppy-eye me into giving it to her for free when some of the things she asked for were bigger than some of the commissions I was making for clients. I told her that there would be a cost attached, she promised she’d pay me and, well, she never did.

I would make the item in question, and show it to her, she’d make grabby hands at it, but I’d remind her that if she wanted it, she would have to pay.

To make a long, possibly rambling story short, she never did. She paid a small fee upfront just once—barely a tenth of the price of the finished item—and I was stupid enough to let her take that piece and I never saw the rest of that money. She called herself a friend, I saw her as quite the opposite. I told her as much the next time she came to me with a request only a week after she had taken off with the latest piece and still had not paid me for it.

She got angry, tried to throw a tantrum, and I showed her the door. I had my locks changed later that same day and that was more or less that.

Until I saw her across the way. I know it was her. It’s been more than a decade, but she had this stupid tattoo that I’d never understood. It was right there on her face. Some sort of gang name, sign, or whatever it was meant to be. I never could read what it meant, and it didn’t really matter. It was that dark splat of faded blue-black across the woman’s face that let me know who she was and while I know I haven’t physically changed much either, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her, if she even remembered me at all.

This is why I briefly wondered as to who might know every single person who made it to the bunker. Now, I’m not saying that some people might not have miraculously survived our brief ice age, I’m not. But if some people survived, she wouldn’t have been part of that group of survivors. I don’t care how shallow, or mean, or whatever-way that may make me sound. If she was stupid enough to get that thing tattooed on her face, and then clearly stupid enough to steal from others, I don’t see her as having the brains enough to have survived the snow outside of the bunker.

Ergo, she must have made it inside and there were clearly enough people—or she very much so kept to herself and then took off to who knows where—that I never saw her. There possibly are other options—that I noticed her but didn’t pay any attention, but at this point, it’s mostly down to the fact that I want nothing to do with her and I know Flint won’t want her around a whole lot either.

We’ll see what happens next.

Final Word Count: 802

For a second, I thought that plushie moved, but… that can’t be. Right?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Human
Age: 30
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 829 words
 

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Relics of the life that was aren’t all that common. Though, in a way, they’re getting to be perhaps a bit more so but they’re still not common. As the years pass, the teams meant to explore the abandoned areas have found more and more places. Just beneath our feet, there is a world that has been left behind but, in a way, there are days when I feel as though that ‘left behind’ part really should be exactly that.

Though, when they come back with clothes, I can’t imagine that anyone might complain. I know that some have tried to make new materials and it has worked out fairly well, most still need the clothes that so happened to be still out there, in homes and on racks in stores. Stores that were buried under feet of snow and then locked away from us by nature taking over.

Of the other things that have come back to the surface, there have been books, though I think that most of those are off in a special area, kept dry and mostly on display. Other than books and clothing, there have been, of course, cooking items that had been in surprisingly good shape, hunting things, daily-life usage things and, this one did surprise me, but I guess I shouldn’t have been, toys.

Toys of all sorts. Some months back one of the teams found their way into a toy store that had fared rather well with the snow. Yes, it had been buried, but the general area of it, or so I heard, had been spared of most of the damage that other stores had suffered. All of the toys are dated, at this point, though I can’t help but feel that certain toys are timeless, especially when they handle the test of time well. Stuffed animals, I’ve known to suffer through time and usage. I mean, years upon years of being loved on by a growing child eventually does show its wear and tear.

Everything that gets found eventually does make its way into the sort of store area that was set up some years back when they first started to do these roaming trips to bring back whatever they could find for the community to use. It feels like it works mostly well. You go in, usually, you’re allowed one to two items at once unless it’s known that you’ve been in a rough situation and need to start anew if you would.

You pick something up, you go to the front, you fill your details in, in the little book they keep and that’s that. It makes sense to keep track of who takes what, just to be sure that everyone gets a fair share, as necessary.

I was in that store a few days ago. I was looking at the collections of lightweight blankets they had. You would think that in this heat and humidity, a blanket would be uncomfortable as could be and you wouldn’t be quite wrong but a light, breathable blanket is always a welcome thing and I’d noticed that they’d found surprisingly intact muslin ones on my last trip in.

Mind you, for a little while I was just roaming aimlessly. The place is surprisingly large and there is a comfortable number of things here. I feel as though, of the survivors there were in the bunker, there is a good chunk of people living here, in the hub. So that the store has so much still to offer is comforting, in its own way. I imagine that some of what gets brought back still is put away for later on, it has to be, right?

So, I’m roaming, and I come across this slight display of toys and stuffed animals and I pause, it’s been so long since I’ve even really seen a toy and one of the stuffed animals looks so much like my beautiful old cow—not a cow, yes, a gorgeous harlequin Dane but I’ve gotten used to people calling him that. I feel like I shouldn’t take it, a kid could possibly want it, but I feel so drawn to it that I’m reaching out for it but out of the corner of my eye, I swear I saw another one of the stuffed animals move.

Now, I’m on my own here, at least in the back here. There isn’t much of a breeze so I know that this couldn’t have caused the motion. I think I’ve held my breath for a good half a minute, just staring at the rack some more, waiting to see if maybe I had imagined it or not. I’m sure I’d imagined it. Instead of staying much longer, I ended up snagging the dog-plushie and I signed the paperwork before being on my way.

At times, I know I’m just tired enough that I see things, it wouldn’t be a new thing in my life. It doesn’t mean I appreciate it.

I just want you to be able to look at me and be proud of the things I’ve done.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 93, physically about 25
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 752 words
 

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There are days when you look back to what you remember of your childhood—or your teen years—and all you can do is shake your head. There isn’t much for me to remember. My childhood wasn’t anything great, my teenage years were no better. It got worse during the dark years but that so happens to just be the way my life happened, and I can’t change it. It did lead me to where I am now, so I shouldn’t complain, should I? Certainly not.

There is one strange event that I do recall and yet, I can’t pinpoint its source. It came back to me in the form of a brief dream a few days ago but only brief snippets are all I remember of it at all.

The faces held some familiarities but only in that way that makes you wonder why they feel familiar. I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint why, exactly, they did. Only that they did. The voices attached to the faces, however, held no familiarity whatsoever and yet, that is how I’ve learned to tell people apart. My eyes play tricks on me at times and someone’s face that I know should be familiar rings no bells while their voice is what I remember vividly.

The strangeness of the dream is still with me now but not in a bad way, only in that odd ‘why?’ sort of way. I was young in that dream. Not so young that my hair hadn’t had time to grow, but still more than young enough that my voice seemingly hadn’t cracked quite just yet. It had begun but it hadn’t dropped.

I remember that I was chasing this unfamiliar yet familiar person almost throughout the whole of the dream. The only thing out of my mouth was my calling out to them that I wanted them to be able to look at me and be proud of the things I’d done. Thinking back to what I recall of my life at that general age, I don’t know that there had been much for me to have done to be chasing someone around so I could know that they were proud of me.

This, perhaps, is why the dream feels strange.

I have to tell myself that this was but fantasy, something that was made up from bottom to top and back again. I know that on the day before, I had worked almost all day on a recipe that I felt could have been a big success but through no real fault of mine, it ended up being a flop and I felt as though I had wasted hours of my life with little to show for it.

There is no need to lie, there are days when I still do feel as though I need to prove myself to the world, this was no exception. These days are rare, but they still come. I want to believe that the dream created this scene for me to sleep through following that flop. How it didn’t happen on the very night of the failed attempt, I have no idea.

It was strange in its own way, as well, because I felt as though I was watching myself do the chasing. I wasn’t really there, it was like watching a video of something that had happened in the past and yet, I know that videos were not a thing where I grew up and one certainly would not have been made of me chasing around a man that could have been as much a stranger as he could have been someone I’d known.

In a day or three more, I know that I will be able to move on from it but, for now, bits and pieces still crop up. A brief thought to what the man was wearing; another brief thought about how there was a market stall there on that one street and it was selling strange and unusual fruits, just little things that bring the whole thing to the surface.

It was no nightmare, of that I am absolutely certain but it was a dream that seemed to have no end. One moment, I am chasing this man, the next, the morning light that just barely filters into the bedroom was drawing me back to awareness. There was no defined beginning or end, not that most of my dreams ever have these things, of course. Still, I need to stop trying to make sense of it.

I haven’t forgotten the nights where you stayed up with me. They made a difference. They really did.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 93, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 721 words
 

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I was very broken when we came back from the dark thing. Yes, I’m aware of how sad it is that I still call it ‘the dark thing’ when so many years have gone by. I just can’t help it. It’s one of those things. I don’t think I will ever be able to call it by the name most others do.

I was broken in a way that I don’t think can be easily put into words. The short version of it is that I had been turned into a very obedient slave.

Flint had his work cut out for him and I’m sure that there were nights that were more difficult to deal with than others and yet he stayed up with me on those nights when I was struggling to come back to myself and I couldn’t sleep. He stayed up with me and it made all of the difference in the world.

Any lesser soul would have mostly just given up on the whole and seen it as a lost cause, I know. I was so very, very broken that I don’t even really understand how he managed to draw me back to the surface of my broken mind. I am awed, still to this day.

The thing is, though, I still do get nightmares about that time. They’re rare, so rare. They happen, though. I get nightmares about the dark thing. I get nightmares about how both of our worlds were turned upside down and inside out when we learned that Kee’ was sick, I get nightmares about every little thing that has marked my life in a bad way but, thankfully, they’re not exactly common.

I used to keep these nightmares to myself at first. I thought that the less I bothered him with these, the faster my recovery would be. I wish I had known better. In a way, I think that my old behaviour is why these nightmares still plague me, even though they’re rare. I want to believe that if I had been open about the pain I felt in the presence of these nightmares, it could have been seen to earlier and my coping mechanism would have changed.

At this point, I know it’s too late but, just the same, it’s all right. I can go months without having to see any of these disturbing images in my mind and I’m forever grateful for that. I’m sure Flint is happier without being woken up every night or even every other night because I would too. I know he’d just tell me that it was all right, that he wants to be there with me and I know these things but I still hate waking him up at night when he’s sleeping so peacefully.

He had his downs too. For a while, I honestly thought that we would be going our separate ways. The thought terrified me but I was more worried about the safety of the kids. I buckled myself in though, he had been there for me through it all and I wasn’t going to deny him my presence when I knew it was needed. It wasn’t just my presence that was needed but I still did what I could to do my part.

Thinking back to when I was a child, I think I would have laughed and done so deeply if someone had given me even just a hint as to what my adult life was going to be like. I never expected to find half of my broken soul. I never expected to have children of my own though it had been repeated to me constantly that I would have so that our village could keep its population to a comfortable level. The thought still makes me shudder some.

Even back then, I knew I wasn’t like ‘the others.’ I knew that being with a woman in the way the other men in the village were just wasn’t something I could ever manage to achieve.

Of course, the things that happened during the dark thing proved that otherwise but I wasn’t even really in control of myself at that point, not really. I didn’t get to decide what I was doing with my free time or even my life. So I’m just glad that all of it is behind us now.

This journal is full of things I couldn’t say. It’s for you. Don’t read it until you get home.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Human
Age: 29
Final Word Count: 698 words
 

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I don’t know how Flint is going to react to this thing but I’m certainly confused and a little worried. This girl is probably just fourteen, fifteen at the very most. I can imagine that she doesn’t have a lot of memories of the time before the snow since it was half a lifetime ago for her. That she’s given me this handwritten journal—something I never thought I would see again—and told me that it was full of things she couldn’t say was worrying, at first. She told me not to read it until I got back to my own place so I didn’t. I put it into my bag and I nearly completely forgot about it until I was back home and emptying my bag, preparing for a quick load of clothes that needed to be washed.

You might think I’m weird, but I think it’s soothing to wash clothes by hand near the source. The water’s a little hot when you get started but if you move just a little downriver, it gets a little colder and it’s a lot easier to handle. I usually stick closer to the source because Flint-stains wash out easier in hot water. But nah, I’m kidding, I know I could wash in cold water but the hot water is just easier for me to deal with, my hands don’t take so well to cold water.

Anyway, there’s this journal, it tumbles out of the bag and I stare at it; I’m wondering if it might bite me if I pick it up. It’s pink, it has little beads somehow glued on there and a lot of glitter. Where she’s found any of these things, I don’t know and I don’t really want to either. I was wondering if it was better I wait for Flint to open it but then I told myself that it was likely just full of poetry or something-other. I still sat it on the table, I went to pick up the clothes we had to wash and I left. There was a whole lot of time left to my day.

Then again, as it turns out, I’m not great when it comes to waiting for things that might not end well for me, for things that leave me curious but in a ‘my stomach is filled with dread’ way. So I stepped back inside, set the clothes to wash off to the side and I started reading.

It turns out to be sort of worse than I imagined. Yes, there are several poems in there, but for the most part, she’s just going on and on about how she’s in love with me and adores me and would want to bear my children and I’m just really confused.

I think I mentioned that she’s probably just fourteen, maybe fifteen? Yeah. Have I mentioned that she moved into the hub just a few months back and we’ve crossed paths several times but beyond a brief smile here and there, I haven’t even really talked to her, so I don’t know where she’s gotten that crazy idea of hers to believe that she’s in love with me.

The fact that she’s talking about being the mother of my children makes me cringe all the more. I’m aware that I’m not big on public displays of affection but if I have to start being, I will. Though just the same, she doesn’t seem completely sane in that little head of hers and I’m almost afraid that she’d start raging or, worse, she’d try to do something really stupid if she got it through her head that I have zero interest in her and, well hell, I’ve been with Flint here for years and that’s not going to change. He’s half of my soul and she wouldn’t even hold a candle.

So I left that journal on the table and I went to wash those clothes. I think I mentioned that doing that particular thing is weirdly soothing for me? Yeah, it is and I’m just going to let go of everything I’ve read in there and once we’re both home, we’ll figure something out.

We shouldn’t get all worked up.

 
Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Human
Age: 28
Final Word Count: 614 words
 

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I can’t stand it when people try to tell me how to act. I just can’t. For the longest of times, I’d had to abide by the home rules that I thought were rubbish for the most part and as soon as I could move out, I did.

It wasn’t easy to live alone but I made ends meet, I kept my precious horse—not a horse, but everyone said that—safe and I only had my own rules to follow. When said horse-sized dog passed on, I think that might have been one of the harder things in my life. All my love had been for the mock beast though having Flint in my life at that point was good, it helped. I had planned on getting another but the snow happened and that plan just went out the window.

So that we found pups after the snow had melted was nothing short of a miracle and while I know that the life span of great danes is short, I’m still making the best of everything and once these two pass on, I don’t know that there ever will be anything else to replace them. That’s okay. I know I’ll cry but I’m just living my life one day after the other right now. They’re old, these beautiful dogs, it’s been years now but they’re still going amazingly strong.

This thing about not being able to stand people who tell me what to think, though, it’s not born of a desire to be childish, it’s born of having had to deal with that behaviour all of my life before I moved out. So having someone trying to play the little peace keeper when it was clear that some of the people in our little work group were clearly looking for trouble just sat wrong with me.

I admit that it might also have had to do that I’d been feeling like crap for the last few days and my almost nonexistent temper was on the very edge of something unpleasant. The only one who could soothe these ruffled feathers were Flint and that’s why he’s where I headed every time I felt myself beginning to simmer a little. There’s just something about him that’s absolutely soothing, I can’t even explain it. It’s either him or the dogs and the dogs usually are also enough but lately, with this one annoying nag of a woman, they weren’t.

I get that she was trying to keep people from most likely maiming one another but to talk to the lot of us as though we were school-children misbehaving when she couldn’t have been much older than I was just rubbed me wrong.

I know that I’ve changed since the world ended. I think we’ve all changed in some way; some changes were minimal but other changes were much bigger. We’ve all just adapted one way or another to this new life, to this survival thing and it’s never quite the same from one person to another, is it? It’s not.

So I’ve been avoiding my work group for about a week now; though I’m not that much of an idiot and I’ve let the guy who leads our team know. I didn’t have to fake anything, I just told him exactly what the problem was and he laughed; a low but deep rumble. He let me know that I wasn’t the first one to complain about the woman who seemed to think herself out better and that there were things in the work to try and find her a working group elsewhere because clearly, most of us couldn’t deal with her.

I’m fine with that.

No wonder you’re miserable. Go sleep. You need it.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 1st Generation
Characters: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 91, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 571 words
 

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Raising a child is something I thought I never would get to do. First, there was Kee’leyiric. He was a little miracle, something new and strange and so unexpected for me to behold. A little miniature copy that was a good mix of me and Flint. I was afraid of dropping him during the first few days. Not that I’d never held a child before, I had, but it was different when it was your flesh and blood you were holding, there just was something more there.

It was a marvel, just watching him grow. Watching him walk, listening to him talk though he was a quiet little boy. He had an affinity for music and that always made me smile. Everything about him made me smile until it was clear that his heart was clinging to the one soul I didn’t want anywhere near him, near anyone. Not that I tried to change his mind. I’d done my fair share of stupid, idiotic things and I just knew that he needed to learn by himself. I did warn him about certain things but I let him discover his world on his own.

I remember his countless, sleepless nights when he was waiting, awake, just hoping and waiting for some knowledge that Thomas was fine and safe and it was heartbreaking. There were so many mornings when I found him nodding off on the couch that I had to walk him back to his bed so he’d sleep. I know Flint did the same thing. What else could we do? He was in love, that much was all over the place, you couldn’t miss it but it was one-sided and you don’t talk someone out of love. I should know.

Eventually, of course, everything went tumbling down to hell but then there was this small thing here and there, little positive things to the ugly negative ones and over time, things were so very different from what they’d been that it was hard to think it hadn’t been all a nightmare, a bad dream that could just be forgotten after some time. It had all happened; no one was going to be able to change the past. I wish we could, because then, I’d change everything about the thing. Then again, that would likely change a lot about everyone’s life so I suppose it’s best to not touch that at all.

After the thing, it took a long time for me to come back to my proper senses. Flint was the most patient soul on the planet and I love him for it, I love him so much. I didn’t think we’d have any more children after everything and due to my behaviour but eventually, there came Adrianna and, about seven years later, Graeme. It was easier with these two, just a little. I still was terrified about dropping them or hurting them but that was more due to what had happened during the thing.

I did eventually come around and now, well our children are all wonderful adults and it just feels good to know I’ve not failed—we’ve not failed—at raising them right. My oldest has a child of his own now, something I’m sure Kee’ had expected as much as I had the idea of him but parenthood did both of them good. Parenthood did all of us good.

I don’t regret a second of it.

It was just a hoax

Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Human
Age: 27
Final Word Count: 567 words

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They looked stupidly pleased with themselves but all I could do was stare. This life we lived now wasn’t the kind of life where stupidity like this could be rewarded. Playing mild pranks I could understand, but organizing something this big just because they thought it would be fun made no sense at all and it made me want to do something terrible and I’ve never been the violent type, I couldn’t be, it wasn’t in me. I hate hoaxes.

I don’t even know when it started or why. All I’d hear were rumours, little whispered words that new survivors were cropping up. I don’t know how anyone believed it, it’s been a few years at this point and, well, it didn’t make sense that survivors would be cropping up now, would it? Though I guess that it could have. There’s no saying that there aren’t survivors out there but at the same time, it just seems unlikely that anyone else managed to survive the intense cold followed by the volcanic activity. I could be wrong, we all could be wrong and there could be others but we have no means of communication.

These rumours though, they gave people hope and I think that it’s the one thing that makes all of this so painful to accept as a hoax. People need a little bit of extra hope in this life to be able to hang onto their lives now. Anyone who had family would have wanted their loved ones to survive this thing.

I know that there’s always been talk of possible survivors but this small, meaningless little group decided that it would be great fun to start something a little more than just a hopeful thought. I don’t know what the higher-ups decided to do with them now that they’ve squashed said rumour but I guess it doesn’t really matter. When do rumours turn into hoaxes? When does it become something that was pushed too far? Will there ever be a time when joking about the snow and volcano will actually be an all right thing? A time when people will be able to look back at that time and not cringe, no want to cry for all they’ve lost, all they’ve left behind?

It’s possible that not everyone thinks of this end of the world thing we’ve survived through as a bad thing. Not everyone was happy with the life they led and some would likely have even preferred that said end of the world keep on forever, that the snow never melt and that we be stuck underground until we all did eventually die off but I don’t think that would have happened. Things were too well structured down there, too well prepared. We could grow food stuff and while the lack of sunlight was hard to deal with, it wasn’t so bad, at least not at first. Feeling the sun on my skin was so wonderful when we got back to the surface for the first time.

I miss my old life a little but not much. I miss my big old dog but I’m also aware that he wouldn’t have been getting any younger and we’ve got a new one now, a survivor. I also know he won’t live forever but I’m making the best of what I have right now and I think that this is the important part.

I’m not always wrong. You just refuse to see my side of things.

Timeline/World: Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Kai’laeryn Elrendir
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 90, physically about 25
Final Word Count: 586 words

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The time during the break is something I have no desire to think about and I manage that well most of the time—to not think about it, that is. Once in a blue moon, my thoughts dip back to that dark time and I just need company, I don’t care what he’s busy doing at that particular moment and he’s learned to read that one piece of body language from me perfectly well to know that whatever else was in the process of being done can wait, I need him holding me or my mind will break.

Those moments are rare, rarer now than they were before since I’ve had a memory walk about a decade ago finally and I’m glad for that. The look of heartbreak in his eyes when I desperately seek him out to pull me away from the dangerous path of darkness tears my own heart to pieces when I can focus again.

One of the things I have had to work hard toward and accept was that when the break away happened and I landed… I’m not sure where, the man who ‘took care’ of me just broke me apart, took every piece that made me who I was and changed it completely. I argued at first. I pointed out that my points on things were not always wrong, that he just did refuse to take my side on things but that soon was broken out of me as well, it was one of the first things to go, my defiance and I have to accept that yes, I was broken, but even beautiful pottery that is once broken can be fixed up and put back together, it just takes time and patience and the end result usually is even more beautiful than it was at the start.

I have no words to let anyone know how glad I am that Flint had that patience with me. Things were not always easy; I regressed often, though less so as time went by but I think that this state of brokenness changed something in him as well. This patience he used to fix me up grew a little shorter over the years and when we had Adrianna, his patience levels had thinned to a very low threshold, I take the blame for the few times he snapped at her before we did figure out the problem and both sought to fix it up and we did. Things had mellowed a lot by the time Graeme had then reached the age Adrianna had been when most of the issues happened but he was such a calm soul himself that there really were no issues.

Now that all of our kids are grown up and the house is peacefully quiet most days, I think we have reached a point in our lives where we’ve been able to leave the past behind us properly, where the darkness that tore us apart is gone. At least with me, it is completely gone. I can just barely think about those dark days and they do not send me spiralling straight into despair, I think that, as a whole, is one of the better things that could have happened to me.

It’s likely I would change what happened during the break apart, I would fight with all I had to keep us together but there is no changing the past and I accept that. I’ve moved on. I have him at my side and cherish every moment.