An Autumn Night

Prologue - Mollie

"Who do you think you fucking are?" I feel my heart's pace quicken.
"Are you just gonna stand there staring at me all gauntly and shit, or are you gonna respond?!"
"I- what..? Why are you doing this, babe?" Tears swelling up in my tired eyes. His face twisted with frustration and i'll-intent.
"Nah, don't fucking 'babe' me, you know what you did, you disgusting whore."
A river of poignant, painful tears washes down my cheeks, pulling my makeup down with it like a magnet.
"Please, don't do this, Nathan... I- we can't keep doing this, it's killing me, it's fucking eating me from the inside out."
I sob and cry harder and harder until the noise begins reverberating against the walls like a banshee. Nathan looks at me, unwavering and disgusted by the situation we have fallen into, our metaphorical pit of disparity and lost love.
"Pfft, you always overreact. You won't do anything, and besides no one would believe someone like you."
He begins grabbing my things and compiling them inside a black drawstring bag, moving precisely yet also hastily.
"W-what are you doing..?"
He snickers.
"You know full well what I'm doing," He looks at me, his gaze piercing my soul with a serrated blade.
"Mollie, we're done, and it's all your fault."
I feel like I'm going to lose consciousness, perhaps that would be better than staying awake and arguing with my lover, my other half, my everything. I feel like my whole world has imploded. Why is this happening to me? What did I do? Why do I have to be like this? I fall to my knees, holding my head in my hands.
"Please! Nathan, t-this doesn't have to happen! I love you more than life itself, I promise you that- I- I don't even know what I would do without you..." My eyes widen as I comprehend what I'm about to lose. I rush to my feet and grab him by his forearm, holding onto him as if my life depended on it.
"Oh my god, Nathan, please just say something... I will change for you, you're my life, I don't want to live if I'm not with you!"
He doesn't even look in my direction. He keeps slamming things into the bag. The high-pitched clink of my few glass possessions smashing against each-other makes my skin crawl, it fills me with a deep, mortifying sense of dread. I let go and step back from him. My tears flowing like a violent storm, only adding to my already overwhelming guilt for what I have done. Nathan takes a deep sigh, still not looking at me, he says.
"Just- Listen. Mollie," he looks at me dead in my eyes, reminding me of the past, of all our good moments and all of our deep conversations, looking in his eyes gives me insatiable desires. Not just sexual desires, but desires of picturesque futures with him. A Vivienne Westwood dress for our wedding. Where we would raise our children and grow old and peaceful together. Every last thing. If I was with him, then I'd embrace the good and the bad. Never had I expected it to end like this.
"I just don't think we were meant to be. This was just a chapter of my life, yknow? Trust me, you'll move on eventually, and if you don't it's not my problem then, is it?" What. Why is he saying this. What happened to us. To him. To me.

After a silence that definitely overstayed it's welcome, he rubs his brow and holds out the drawstring bag.
"I'll message you when the rest of your shit is sorted, okay? I think it's best you leave now."
I clench the strings of the bag. It feels too light. Like an obedient lapdog, I slowly exit our apartment and head for the elevator. 'Out of Order'. Of course it fucking is. I tread down the stairs, the feeling of being alone and unloved cutting me to my core. Feeling like I was 5 years old again and I got nothing for Valentine's. Like I was last to be picked in PE. Like everyone around me hated me, and distance themselves as if I had a contagious diseases. I feel sick in my own skin, I feel like I don't belong anywhere. The only one to ever truly accept me was Nathan, and now I've lost him too. Just like I've lost myself.

I yearn for the tears and the sobs; I want to hear something, anything. I feel like the shell of a hermit crab who got too big. Like I've been hollowed out, like someone vacuumed out my heart and soul. Anything that made me human felt absent.

I get to the lobby and it's completely vacant, I look around and feel uneasy. Where is everyone? Do they all hate me that much?

The rain smashes into the sidewalk, sounding like countless meteors hammering into the Earth. It shows no sign of stopping. I search through the bag he packed. Lethargically at first, then quickly with desperation, like a pigeon scouring dirty streets for some sustenance. Where's the umbrella? I begin panicking, my stress engulfing me. I bought that stupid umbrella, who gave him the right to withhold it from me? I exhale with emphasis and give a longing look towards the stairwell I had only just trekked down. I bite my lip in the hopes of calming my nerves. It's to no avail. I put my face in my palms and consider my next move. I could go up to the apartment and demand that he returns my umbrella to me, or I could just get wet.

The thought alone of seeing him right now fills me with anxiety; I decide to endure the heavy, uncaring, Autumn rain.

I step out and am immediately met with a barrage of wet, cold bullets. I close my eyes and tilt my head backwards. The feeling of the rain smashing down and colliding against my skin, my flesh, it fills me with an enormous sense of comfort. I yearn this feeling. The feeling of being touched. Of being wanted, desired even.

I start moving, placing one foot in front of the other in a rhythmic sequence. Anything to attempt to achieve some stability and continuity in my life. A sense of order. The warm embrace of permanence.