Over

In a move that many would consider ill-advised, I took a day’s leave and spent all of it at my ex-girlfriend’s place. She was on leave too, and we were the only ones in the house. But I wasn’t there to see or talk to her; I was there to use her computer because it can do a number of things that mine can’t. And for the longest time, I’ve been meaning to finish something I started working on while we were still attached.

Sounds incredible? But it’s true, and in many ways it characterises our relationship (whether as a couple or as platonic friends): one of fuss-free practicality. We never stood in each other’s way; we never hesistated to change our plans if there were more pressing matters to attend to, and we never questioned or made up for them. We felt it was no point arguing over things that needed to be done anyway.

So it was unsurprising that she was completely comfortable with me spending a whole day using her computer as she went about cleaning the house and clearing old clothes. Where such a move in the past would have seen us heaving against each other in various states of undress, this time around I went about my business with ruthless efficiency, finishing what I set out to do before her mum got home.

And for the first time since our breakup, I detected no shadow of longing or regret in her countenance. In that quiet, spartan flat of hers, she felt more like a sister than a former lover. And I realised that all the vestiges of our romance had dislodged themselves from my heart. I paused for a moment, trying to remember what it was like to kiss her, and it felt exceedingly weird.

When we parted ways at the bus-stop near her flat, she headed for mass and I to town, it was with such matter-of-factness that I knew that chapter of our lives was truly and well closed. And I felt an immense sense of liberation.

I Could've Walked All Night

After having some very nice photographs taken together, she asked if I wanted to call a cab, since the party was very far in. I declined, and went off on my own after breaking our parting gaze. There’s a certain beauty in walking along dimly lit stretches of road, beneath a thick canopy of black foliage, passing by unusual houses and buildings with unseen occupants and untold stories. There’s a kind of wonder in throwing one’s head back to look at the sky and being stunned by the sight of the immense halo around the moon that you normally can’t see for the streetlights. And there’s a kind of escapism in wandering out to an unfamiliar main road, feeling the emptiness of passing cars, imagining the sterile comfort of the homes in the distance, and breathing in the stinging freshness of the air on a night so clear that you can see for miles.

And there is an unexpected joy in not caring if the wait for a cab lasted another hour; then getting into one and being surprised by how quickly the landscape became swallowed by familiarity, because home was just around the corner.