No One Held It Open

He holds me, kisses my forehead.

“You have everything I’ll ever want in a woman. You deserve the best,” he says, then walks away.

The moment he lets go of my arms, I feel the warmth leaving my body. I stand frozen as his footsteps sink down the stairwell. I can still smell the candle I lit this morning, though it burned out hours ago. The smell of summer evening lingering in this narrow hallway. I hate finally noticing the wallpaper starting to peel at the seams. He helped me put it up when I first moved in.

Everything he’ll ever want…these walls echo it back at me.

I run outside and clutch the cold railing, leaning over it to scream down at him. “Then why can’t you just be the best man for me?!” I don’t care who hears.

He stops. Looks up. Even from here, I can see it—the slump in his shoulders that used to make me feel safe, the collapse in his eyes that once lit up my world. He doesn’t answer. He pushes the door open and walks through. He’s out of my building. Out of my life.

I could go down the stairs and out into the street right now. I’d run barefoot, lungs burning, scanning the crowd for his familiar face. I imagine something in my hand—a leash, maybe—to drag him back upstairs, lock him in until he understands that I can’t just watch the best thing I’ll ever have walk away.

There is no one else, you idiot. Isn’t wanting everything about me enough reason to stay?

But I don’t move. I stay on the empty landing. Not one of my neighbors cares to step out.

The door clicks shut. No one held it open, not even me. I’ll never see him again.

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