All Things End

i watch the fall and it's time that i was leaving too

A few hours and several Queen and Rufus songs later, Frida finally finished everything that was on her to-do list that day. She was more than willing to pop open a bottle of whiskey, drink, and dance the night away to celebrate. All her bags are packed, and all her paperwork has been sorted out. She's antsy to leave everything behind now. After all, it is time to move on, and she's ready to face this new chapter of her life head-on.

At least...that's what she's trying to tell herself. The truth is, if the circumstances were different, she would choose to be here.

She would choose to stay and have him in her arms forever as it should have been, as they vowed that fateful day in October–just four years ago.

Frida scoffed at the thought of their wedding. She knows she can waste her time exploring the many should-have-been cards life has dealt her, but Frida sees no merit in doing that.

These scenarios can eat through her anytime they want; they wouldn't change the reality she has yet to face, and that is that the most significant relationship she has ever had is over. Benny had stopped loving her, just like she always feared he would.

Now she's sitting in the middle of an apartment, an exact mirror of the young woman she was when she first moved to Stockholm – alone, a little confused, and a lot scared.

This new life has a death grip on her, but she does her best to ignore it, to take every day as it is with a smile on her face to avoid looking like she feels.

Hiding.

Deflecting.

Frida's always been good at that.

But that needs a lot of work to be convincing – so every night, or at least three nights out of the week, she commits herself to the drink-and-dance-the-night-away plan. She cuts her hair and dyes it whatever she wants to reestablish her agency, hoping it's enough to help her forget the pain, the man she was so sure was her forever love. To forget the music – the magic they made together.

More importantly, she needs to drink and dance so she never has to think about how sure she was that he loved her just days before he confessed to being in love with somebody else. So she never has to think about all the times he pulled her out of a depressive episode by telling her how important, loved, and special she was to him because if she truly were all that, he never would have left her. Right?

"I need to stop," Frida said aloud, the words cutting through the downward spiral she found herself in. She gulps down what's left of her glass, basking in the heat the liquid leaves on her chest on its way down, and runs a palm over her face. She needed a refill and another record from Hans' stash to play. It was the only way to ensure that all thoughts were effectively blocked. Halfway through her search, she stumbled upon a Carly Simon record, which caused a painful flutter in her heart.

"So much for getting into a special mood," she tells herself. "Well, looks like we were meant to cry tonight, Frida. If we're going to have a breakdown, we might as well do it right, don't we?" she scoffs.

Before Frida could put the record in the player, she was interrupted by a panicked knock on the door. Startled by the sound, Frida slowly approached the entrance of her apartment. Through the peephole, she sees the man who had invaded her mind all day long standing on the other side of the door.

Frida considers not opening it.

She can always pretend to be out and about with different men, give the damn gossip journalists something true to write about for a change.

"I know you're home, Frida," she hears him say after a while. "Please let me in."

Whether it's the sorrow in his voice or the ache in her heart that pushes her to open the door, she doesn't know. But she does.