Tonight as you zip down your gown and kick off your heels, you think about him. Then again as you stand under the shower, feeling the water cascade down your body, down your back and between your legs. You beg it to wash away the fatigue in your bones and the tightness in your chest, but it didn't.

Last month, the man you were supposed to spend forever with broke up with you over a text. You flung your ego to the wall and begged him to stay, but his mind was made. You could see your children with his long legs and your heart shaped face, running around and laughing but he didn't share that vision with you. In every version of your dream about the future, he was present. What were you supposed to do now that he doesn't want to be part anymore? How were you supposed to do life alone when he was your other half?

"I'm just not feeling this thing anymore. Sorry." That was his reason. He had called what you shared a thing; all the memories you had created was summarised into a gut wrenching word, 'thing'. It punched you right in the chest and sucked out the air from your lungs. Your ears rang as though you'd just been slapped, but you still couldn't bring yourself to hate the man you'd spent so many years loving.

So, you threw yourself into an endless pile of work, burying yourself with assignments that concerned you and the ones that did not. Your work rate increased and you would get a promotion anytime soon. Your friends were impressed at how fast you moved on and told you a better man would come, but everytime your phone beeped, you ran to it, hoping for an apology. You would take him back if he begged hard enough. And every night, you returned home tired and begged your shower to wash the pain away; it never obliged you. But even it washed the pain and fatigue, what about the hole in your chest? The chunk that was ripped out when he walked away. What was going to fix your sudden inability to breathe, as though your lifeline was unplugged? Because your overtime at work was definitely not helping.

Maybe tomorrow, you'll heal. For now, you pick his shirt and wear it to bed. Maybe tomorrow, you'll let him go.