The rain was thick the day the air smelled like ash. The flowers seemed wilted the day the trees howled in the wind. The quietness was especially loud the day the sidewalks were lonely. The excitable children on the playground appeared slower the day the birds didn’t chirp. The world seemed grey the day he broke me.

I knew it was coming. Slow but fast. Every walk I took past the wine red oak trees to his house grew slower. The sound of his laughter felt as though it was slowly drifting away with the wind. Time no longer seemed to stop when I was with him but instead move on leisurely. 

When he did it. When the words carefully exited his mouth. My mind wanted to be anywhere else. It instead focused on the loose hair sticking out of his eyebrow. How the man in the painting across the room seemed to lose its color as he spoke. The sound of his neighbors tv playing what I could make out to be the auburn game. Anything else. Anything else but the 5 words. The 5 words that I knew would break me as soon as I focused on him. The 5 words I had been so prepared yet shocked to hear. The 5 words that were making my nose burn as I bit my tongue so hard to fight the tears. What had I done wrong? Was it because I talked too much? Was it because of another girl? Was it because we were going off to college soon? Or. Or was it simply because he didn't feel it anymore? I didn’t turn his world anymore. I didn’t make him happy anymore. I didn’t give him reasons to care anymore. Was it because he didn’t love me anymore? It couldn’t be. “I want to break up”. Who knew 5 words so meaningless apart could mean so much together? “I want to break up”. The thoughts were encapsulating my mind swirling around making me nauseous. I ran. I don’t know where I was going but I ran for what felt like forever. 

I ran past the oak trees which now appeared to be grey. I ran past a playground of children who seemed to stop laughing. I ran past the flowers who looked as devastated as I did. The world felt quiet. Were the tears on my face mine or the clouds?  The rain smelled like ash. I was broken. I didn’t know what to do. Where to go. It had felt as though the entire world was collapsing around me. How could my heart still be beating after it had just been shattered into a million pieces? How could so many tears be leaving my face when I had drunk nothing all day? How could I be shivering in the humid summer air? How could he do this? I was terrified. How would I go on?

The hours wore on. And I grew more dull. Like I was being paralyzed by my emotions. I was in so much pain. Yet I felt nothing. The earth spins at roughly 1000 miles per hour, so fast you can’t even feel it. But for the first time in my life I was getting dizzy.