Autumn

Midnight At midnight, sitting on a chair, she realized that she had let him go. So imperceptibly, easily and naturally, he left her life without her noticing. Anna sat drinking tea, when suddenly, looking at the city, she realized that she was no longer looking for it. He doesn’t walk the streets they used to walk together. And when she forgot the way to the cafe where they always went to eat, it was easier for her to think about life. No, she wasn’t sucked in by the dullness of everyday life, on the contrary, she saw something bright in the routine, looking at life from a different angle. She suddenly realized that she had let go of him, and it made her feel better. She wanted so much to cry out with joy, with the knowledge that by letting him go, Anna had found the whole world, the whole universe, because now she herself was free. No, he was not her master, he had let her go a long time ago, only now she did not let go, she kept holding on to something invisible, sliding and, it seemed to her, it was love, yesterday she was still alive. Tonight, she knew she didn’t need him. And in confirmation of her thoughts, she opened the photo on her phone and, looking at it, felt nothing. She got up, picked up a cigarette and lit it, deleting everything that was left of him: correspondence, photos, even his T-shirt, and realized that now it was the most useless thing for her. She’s free, she’s open, and she looks up at the sky and says a quiet " Thank you.” Sitting on a chair at night from Thursday to Friday and looking at the moon that flooded her kitchen, Anna drank coffee, thinking about her future and drawing the city. She looked around and decided that tomorrow she would pack up her things and rent a new apartment. She needs to change everything in this life, and if outwardly she can change something starting from the apartment, place of work, then internal changes will come, such as the attitude towards herself, the concepts of friendship and love will also change, without them there is no way. She’d seen him today and thought he’d noticed her, because she was standing too close. But no, I didn’t notice. And remembering how she had drunk in bitter tears at night, she watched him get on the subway. She decided to skip her station, as there was clearly someone else out of the two of them. And she wondered to herself how she couldn’t live very well without him. How many times she’d tried to find him in the crowd and come home crying her eyes out. How she smashed vases, how she broke glass in the bathroom, and the neighbors thought they had a madwoman in their house. Today, sitting at midnight, she let him go forever and realized that it is not difficult to fake love, it is difficult to keep a fake, it requires much more effort than real and sincere. At about midnight, she let him go. Forever.