Shreyas B. Shakya
12th September, 2021
On a dark, cold, and chilly afternoon in downtown Chicago, Kristen sat with her shoulders slumped on a bench near her local park, her eyes were red from exhaustion and lack of sleep. After days of considering what to do next, she decided that leaving town and starting fresh would be the most logical step, her mind drifting back to the day Jonathan had called.
7th October, 2010 (around eleven years earlier)
Kristen was at work when she received a call from Jonathan, a marketing manager closely tied to her company. She worked as an administrative assistant at a tech firm known as Brilliant Tech, where she spent most of her days receiving and forwarding emails from a desk shaped like a collection of rings, slightly tilted and stacked over one another. She often wondered which idiot designer had approved it because of its awkward structure, it couldn’t even hold more than three kilograms, making it practically useless.
Although most of her day was consumed by work, she used her free time on a personal project: a collection of novels she hoped to finish someday. She didn’t yet know where the story was heading; it felt as though it had split into a million branches, each possibly leading to a dead end. And yet, one storyline stood out vividly, one based on her relationship with Jonathan. The night it all ended in flames. They had had a heated argument a few nights earlier, which had ultimately led to their separation. She tried to forget it, but it lingered like a song stuck in her head.
15th January, 2012
Kristen stood outside a café, waiting at the spot where an old friend had asked to meet her. After several years, reuniting with Callum over coffee was surprisingly comforting. They talked about the past, their memories appearing like a blurry image clear when viewed from afar, but foggier when examined too closely. For the first time in a long while, she felt seen, not like a replaceable presence, as she had often felt with Jonathan.
22nd July, 2021
The years passed in a blur. Kristen and Callum grew closer, eventually marrying and even adopting a pet dog. One comfort was that the burden of earning a living no longer rested solely on her shoulders; Callum was a relatively well-known actor and earned a decent amount.
That night marked their seventh anniversary. With guests invited, the house filled with overlapping conversations, and the scent of food wafted through every room. Yet Kristen couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Callum avoided her gaze, constantly fidgeting with his tie. As the party went on, laughter echoed through the house, offering only temporary joy. Then she noticed his hand resting on a guest of one of his co-workers and everything began to fall into place.
His avoidance, the crowded guest list on their anniversary, the distance between them, it wasn't a coincidence. He had lost interest. He had moved on.
Realising this, Kristen stepped outside to catch a breath of fresh air, struggling to understand how it had all happened without her ever knowing. She wanted to feel angry or heartbroken, but instead she felt numb.
In the months that followed, she drifted through her days like a ghost inhabiting her former life. Callum’s absence felt different from Jonathan’s, less like fire and more like smoke, a quiet disintegration rather than a sudden collapse. She had once believed flames were the worst part, but smoke lingered. Smoke stayed.
Yet in the years that followed, Kristen began to rediscover herself; the version that existed before the fires. She eventually finished and published her novels, which gained enough recognition to keep her afloat.
In the end, perhaps healing wasn’t about forgetting the fires, but about learning to live without letting them burn her anymore.
