The Restaurant (inspired by right where you left me, by taylor swift)

Chapter one

"I'm a cat, and you're a dog," he said. Even in the darkest of moments, he had this way about him, always seeming as though he was unbothered, unfazed... and unwavering.
"I'm really independent and don't really like to be smothered all the time... and you're just like this needy puppy. it's too much for me"

His words cut deep like a knife, plunging into all her hopes and dreams, but also her fears. She sat there stunned, her vibrant blood red hair shining in the sun.

"We could've worked it out if you had tried to meet me in the middle." she tried to explain.
Her eyes were welling with tears and her heart was beginning to ache from the pain.

"I just don't think a relationship is good for either of us right now, but I think we could maybe be very good friends." The silence was deafening, and she couldn't help but let her tears fall.

"We'll still come here, and we can meet up, and we can tell each other about the kind of lives we're living."
She couldn't really think of anything to say to that.
What could she say?
Could she pretend to be happy?
Pretend that this was ever what she wanted?
If she did she would be lying.

After he left, she felt tied to her seat. It was as if someone had put superglue on her chair.
She would breathe in, and breathe out. Again and again.

Over and over.

The clock would tick and it would tick, and in her mind the hands rapidly spun round and round.
Much like the hands of the clock itself, she too felt as if she was spinning through time... frozen.
Slowly but surely, everybody who had filled the room only minutes prior had made their way out.

The restaurant closed for the night. But, as always, it opened again.
The hustle and bustle of people in their everyday lives would rattle around her, yet she couldn't move. She was in shock.
Others came and went.
Some tried to say things to her, trying to help, and others would mind their business.
Friends would stop by, with failing attempts to try to snap her out of it.
But none of it phased her.
Her eyes would stare out of the window, unable to blink. Her every muscle was frozen into place.
Her hand remained, holding her glass of wine, as the liquid slowly began to evaporate in time.

Mould would begin to form on the surface of her drink.
It started as little circles before slowly growing and growing... g r o w i n g, spreading around and covering it like its own layer of skin.
She would smell it in the air, but there was nothing that she could do.
She hoped and she prayed, that soon she could throw that glass away and never look at it again. But instead she stayed. She saw her own reflection in the glass, a sad sight of broken dreams and wasted potential.

She wondered what would become of her when this was all over.
Could she ever be a writer?
An artist?
Turn her pain into an artistic outlet?
It was all she wanted, but day by day her hope was melting away.

In the night her mind would begin to drift away, she would imagine an alternate reality where this had never happened.
She would imagine falling into his arms again. She would repeat the same phrase over and over, because her mind was consumed with only this:

"I'm going to stay here forever until he comes back for me"

As a new day would begin, the sun would shine on her face, yet nothing ever changed.
She had been broken and that was that.
She was stone cold.