These Roses Were For You
But you never cared at all, did you?
Every weeknight begins the same way.
My purse slumps to the floor. I shrug off my coat at the door before replacing it on its hanger in the closet. Then I toe my heels off and switch to the comfort of slippers. Just this one transition, small that it is, feels like such a relief after a long day of juggling projects for my department that’s been understaffed for months.
My gaze skates to the clock in the living room, the one I bought at a home goods store an hour away. The black metal Gothic loops around the clock face spoke to the part of me that had always longed to take a meandering trip overseas just to stay a week in a castle — and of course you had rolled your eyes at me for my reasoning.
“Buy it then,” you said, shrugging off the conversation as easily as if I had never spoken at all. It was a wonder you didn’t argue. Maybe that was why I fought the instinct to set the clock down and walk out of the store without buying anything.
That clock symbolizes one thing to me: it was the one silent way I stood up to you. Everything else in this apartment was something you had picked out yourself. Sometimes it felt like there was no room left for me. It was so damn suffocating. Even the cookware and china in the kitchen had been relics from…
