And Suddenly, We Are Strangers Again

* * *

Streets buzz with life and yet this one in particular is deserted apart from the small huddle of people who sit within a café, sipping at various drinks and nibbling away at various foods. Some people walk in and out of a book store that holds hard covered stories from another time of history and the tune of soft piano flows from its open windows and wide doors. Few people walk down the street and a single car bounces down the road before pulling into a park.

This is a street she knows all too well. She had spent many days here and for a good long six months she's avoided it's presence as if it where the black plague.

Finally she is here. Finally she is healed from the heartbreak she thought would end her. Seeing the places that was theirs is her final stepping stone to being over someone she never truly had... it's the final stepping stone that will allow her to live her life once again and though she came here to get her life back on track with someone new, she had never expected to see him and her.

Their hands are tangled together as she rambles on and on, his eyes only on her as he listens intently to whatever it is leave's her mouth. For a second, a fleeting second she feels her heart leap with a familiar ache and she watches them as they talk, exiting what was once their café... now it is his and hers café.

It doesn't hurt as much as she thought it would, seeing him and her together, but she knows it's another stepping stone. Yes, she accepted he left her for another long ago but she hasn't seen them in the flesh since he moved out and she stood waiting outside their old apartment by the car they had driven away in. She had accepted them and what had happened, she had accepted she wasn't for him and he for her, but it hurts her to see his life take place with a women other than herself at a café that holds sentimental value for them both.

It's a shock. A slap to the face. But she knows she cannot do anything about it. She doesn't want to anyway.

* * *

They ran into a nearby café, panting and laughing as they attempt to ring out their hair and cloths, water splashed at their feet. As she pushed her hair back from her face, he stared. He couldn't seem to grasp how lucky he had come to be able to hold the girl with soaking hair and mascara runs down her face that she furiously wiped at, reddening her cheeks from the rough sleeves of his jacket he had given her earlier that day.

"What?" she had asked upon noticing his gaze and she looked down at herself, afraid something is wrong with her drenched appearance. He had laughed out, the sound resonating from his belly as it shook his whole being. She stared in shock as her sore cheeks turned tomato red.

"Nothin', love" His dimpled cheeks had smiled and he grabbed her wrists, lightly tugged her over to a table when he had noticed the looks they had begun to receive from other customers who sat in front of hot mugs of coffee and heated up cakes.

They took a seat, a small conversation took place as they decided on exactly what they wanted and when they finally got their order they sat down and ate it in what had been a comfortable silence.

That café became their café. The place they both realized they loved each other for the first time and for the next two years every Sunday they would meet there and sit down for a bite to eat and a coffee to drink.

They had been at peace. So in love.

That had taken place two weeks before they shared their first real kiss in the kitchen of his apartment. That kiss had decided it all for them and they were both set on one thing, they would do everything together, experience all that life could give them together. Get married, begin their dream careers, get their first house, buy a kitten together because she doesn't like dogs and maybe, just maybe one day have a child before growing old and grey together.

That day had decided it for them and not long after she had moved in with him. Every morning they would get up and get dressed, eat breakfast and brush their teeth and before it came time to leave for work they would hold one another close, swaying to the sound of music. It hadn't mattered what song, they simply pressed shuffle and no matter the tempo they would sway slowly, lost in their own little world. Completely and utterly in love with one another.

And at night when they'd come home they'd sit and watch TV and chat, eating food and laughing as they mess around. Instead of sway like in the morning they'd have tickle fights or build pillow forts before having a good pillow fight where only one would come out victorious and when it came to bed they would lay down with the lights off and watch the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and talk about everything and anything until she would fall asleep and he would pull her close, before closing his own eyes and would join her in a world of dreams where anything could happen.

That love was so real and she had never, ever imagined to find out about another women in life. It had been two years since they first feel in love, since they first kissed and it had been months since they danced together. She had thought nothing of it but oh how she wished she had because then she could have saved herself from acting so foolishly- or so she believes.

Her heart had broken in two and her world had shattered.

"Just forget about me. I don't love you anymore, there isn't any point in reminiscing about what once was" Then he had left, leaving her in an apartment where she had spent her past two years living with him. Every memory permanently locked inside its walls and she had hated the once cosy apartment.

He had walked out of the apartment and she had watched from the window. She saw him wrap his arms around the blonde women and she scowled, she had been everything she wanted to be and in that moment she saw her take what she once called her world.

They had driven away in a small red car and he had been happy, she had been broken.

* * *

She is snapped from her memories as an arm is wrapped around her shoulders. Startled she jump and looks up to see a freckled, smiling face beam at her as if she is the world and a large grin takes over her shocked expression.

"You scared me half to death!" She lands a playful slap to his chest and he laughs, flashing crooked teeth that she finds to be one of the many things she's grown to adore about him.

Quickly she pushes herself out of his grasp and just like that, the man who broke her heart is flung from her mind as she watches the man who helped push her out of that stump in her life, laugh heartily before her.

At that time in her life she had thought she would never be the same girl she once was and then he came along. Him and his golden hair, crooked teeth and freckled face had come along and helped push her up alongside her family and friends... and soon she quickly grew over the boy who broke her.

"So sorry" He pauses and turns his back, gesturing for her to jump on. "You aren't going to be late"

She giggles and jumps on his back, holding on tightly to avoid falling off onto the hot pavement below them as he straightens up.

As they both leave the small, nearly deserted street into the much busier one she feels a weight lift from her chest as a serene smile graces her face. She rests her cheek against his back, her whole being brightened with the release she has longed for, for so long.

She has her whole life ahead of her and she knows it and she cannot wait to start it again, this time she will take things slow and whoever it may be with she knows one day she will have her happily ever after.

She is now at peace. She can now move on with her life.

"And just like that, we are strangers again"

* * *