[holy crap I am listening to chasing cars rn i am not okay]
She walked down the street, hand-in-hand with her daughter. She never felt any guilt or sadness or anything. All she felt that day was relief. She went back to her hometown with her daughter after an awful divorce. It turned out she never loved him from the start and regrettably realizing it 5 years into their relationship.
She brought her to the park that day... October 23, a Tuesday morning.
"Ma'am, would you care to buy one of my paintings?" She heard a man ask. She turned around to find an old man sitting on a stool with a few paintings spread out across his feet. She decided to ignore it but one painting caught her eye. She walked up to the man and crouched down in front of him, "Did you paint all of these?"
"Yes," he shot her a toothy grin. She scanned her eyes over the numerous knockoff paintings of different famous painters and her attention was easily caught by the colors she was so familiar with back when she was younger. "Is that a Turner?" she asked.
"Why yes ma'am," he answered.
She squinted her eyes at it, looking at it carefully. "What's it called?"
"Sunrise with Sea Monsters."
And she bought it.
Of course, she bought it.
She was about to walk away with her daughter to resume where they left off when she heard a familiar voice. She knew that voice all too well.
"Hey, did that lady just took that Turner-"
And so, she turned around. And that's when she saw him.
He was still as beautiful as ever, with his long black hair cut shorter than the last time she saw him. The moment their eyes met, everything came back to her. The golden memories from when she was younger came in flashbacks-from the day she first met him, from the hours they spent talking every morning at 4:30 a.m., to their late night walks on the campus and to everything that happened to them in between. "Mommy, let's go!" her daughter tugged at her hand. But she stood still, staring into his hazel eyes that she has grown to love. She knew she looked at him with sorrow and he knew he looked at her in guilt and regret...
But they were both wrong.
For it wasn't sorrow nor guilt like they both thought it to be. It was a look of 'can never be'-a look of something that could've happened. A look of something that had the possibility happening but didn't.
And it was all they could do.
Just look.
A tall young woman wrapped his arms around him, greeting him with a kiss and the spell was once again broken. She turned around and started walking, smiling to herself. She looked up the sky and saw the sun setting. Now she understood why she always preferred sunrises from sunsets. Now she understood why she loved the sunrise. What was once a mystery to her has been finally answered.
She never stopped thinking about him. Not once in her life. Even if she thought she didn't, she still did.
She was just a girl then.
Never have she loved since then.