It was near the end of November. The sweet cool autumn was turning into bitter cold. But the girl sitting on the couch had already gone numb from the coldness that was grasping her heart. Beside her sat the prince of her dreams, as she used to think of him until then, in a small roadside café. This was their ‘spot’ from the day he had first brought her here, to have their special “us” time. If it had just been any other day, he would’ve wrapped his arm around her and hugged her tightly to warm themselves up and their hearts. Now distance was slowly creeping in and the few inches between them seemed like miles.

“Why did it have to end?”, she finally broke the silence. He looked up and said, “Maybe it was fate. Maybe we were never destined to be together forever.” His gaze remained fixed to one spot on the ceiling.

Few years back it was this same fate that had brought them together and it was this same fate that they believed would keep them bound to each other forever, but here they were.

“What was it, was it something that I did?”

He now looked down, gave a light smile and said, “No its not you, its me.”

If this was coming from any other person, she would’ve blown it off as a lie, but one look into his eyes and she knew he meant every word of it. He continued.

“My heart doesn’t seem to be in the right place now.”

She was trying really hard not to break down and cry. The memories of the times they spent together flashed before her like a picture book.

“Was it all a lie then? Were all of those little gifts that we gave each other for nothing? Those quickened pulses when we saw each other or the sense of complete peace when we held hands, were they all a fluke? Did you ever truly love me?”

That last question made a deep wound in his heart. He knew the answer, the most obvious one. “Yes!”, he wanted to scream. He wanted to hold her in his arms and never let go. Oh, how he wished that time itself would stop and keep them together forever, but he knew that this beautiful relationship that they had nurtured for years was now dying, and it was because of him.

“The past me would’ve said yes, and meant it. But now, I don’t know.”

Honestly, he might’ve felt a lot better if she had just screamed or thrown things at him or slapped him and left, but she did none of those. Instead, she just remained silent, staring at her cup of coffee that had long gone cold, and that was killing him.

A soft Taylor Swift melody played over the speakers. In some parallel universe where they were still together, they would’ve sung along, hugging each other, swaying gently to the music, high on love. Here it felt like Taylor was singing their very own tragic love story. He then finally got up to leave.

“So, it’s a goodbye then.”

She didn’t reply, nor did she shift her gaze from that cup. He made an awkward gesture to pat her back but refrained at the last moment. He thought he saw a tear streak down her cheek.

So out he went into the cold, leaving the warmth of his beloved forever and walked his way back home. His heart felt really heavy, but was it from the sadness or the tumor that was slowly growing, he didn’t know.