It was a long night deep with emotion. The storm added to intensity of it all. The rain was relentless as were my thoughts about her. Seeing her with him tore me apart inside. Somethings you can not expect. My reaction was beyond my expectation. I knew I loved her but this is hard to describe. In a second everything was upside down and floating uncontrolable through my universe. In a moment the world was foreign mystery to me and I hate all the things I love. Instinctively I just wanted run. It wasn’t out of cowardice that I ran. I needed a moment to catch up to my thoughts, I needed a moment to be able to feel the ground beneath my feet, but most of all I needed as much space between myself and Ivy. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say, or I was afraid to face the cruel truth of the moment. Pain doesn’t scare me. My mind was overflowing with words and thoughts, but I ran because the thoughts running through my mind were dark and destructive. I was having dinner with friends that night at a local cafe and there they were plain as day. Her arms wrapped around him. Even before they emerged from the shadows I knew it was Ivy. I knew she was dating someone, but as I said I underestimated how deep the roots of this love had grown. Thank god my friends and I were done with dinner. I quickly dropped my credit card down and signed the check. Driving home in the rain with each passing mile I tried to forget her name. Memories played in my head over and over again. Looking back in moments like this you always wonder where did you go wrong. Was there a moment you should have left? Was the first word you shared a mistake? Is your heart defective? Should I regret even knowing her name? I wasn’t sure if she saw me, but as soon as I got home my phone began to explode with her calls and text messages. I could smell the panic in her words which I don’t understand. “Are you ok,” she asked in one of her text messages. Are you ok? I was pretty far from ok, but I was not about to reply to her. What did she want me to say? I guess I could have said, “Yes I’m ok.” That would have been a lie. Ivy eventually stopped texting. The next morning I thought it was over, unfortunately my phone started ringing. I ignored the first call. Then a second call came in. I ignored again. After the third ignored call she finally got the hint and stopped calling. She seemed to have given up, but as I pulled into the parking lot at work her text messages started up again. “We need to talk,” she texted. We need to talk? Not sure what there was left to say. I guess I could have said yes we need to talk about this whole in my chest left from last night. I just continued to ignore her because honestly I had nothing to say. It is what it is. She doesn’t love me, and she’s happy with someone else. Really what else was there to say? I settled into my desk hoping to have quiet Friday, but I should have known better. She worked in the same building, and we were only one staircase away. I was reading the morning batch of emails and suddenly there she was standing;