The poster she made still by her bed. My girlfriend. Always so simple when I was with her. Knowing exactly who I was. Knowing my place in this world. Knowing my place in her life. Away from her, I’m unsure of which side of the world the sun will choose to rise.

This is what I feared most. That coming back here, to her, I’d still feel it. Lost. Where do I fit? Now that question not asked only there, but here too, in my city. Asked of myself in the place I would never have thought it would have to be asked: where do I fit in her life? Where does she fit in mine?

There it’s almost easier. That girl from the city, people stare, intimidated or impressed it’s hard to tell amongst the shiny faces. They don’t realise there’s no reason to be either. Here though, home, it hurts more. Thomas Woulfe was right. You can never go home again. In your absence, things change. Still my city, but her, still mine?

Breathless at the very sight of her. Still. So beautiful. I never stood a chance. I feel my pulse start to race just thinking of her. Why couldn’t it have been just us? Lock ourselves away the way we said we would. Nothing else wanted or needed. But that smile, I could never say no. So I went, surrounded by a dozen faces I didn’t know. When hers, the one I wanted to see, she was somewhere else. I only wanted to be with her. Why did I have to make her understand that? Why wasn’t that what she wanted too?

The silence as we made our way home. Once so comfortable, now empty. So many words to say but neither of us knowing the right ones. Holding her as we fell asleep, never more apart. It feels as though I’m slipping away from her. The more I hold on the further she feels; the further I feel.

I can hear her breathing. She’s stirring now. She’ll be awake soon. I know. I know every beat of her. I know she wants to know what it is I was thinking when I was out on the balcony but that she won’t be able to understand. I know if she asked if things had changed and I said ‘no’ she wouldn’t believe me. I know she’s waiting for me to come back but I don’t know if I can.

She’ll sit up when she realises I’m not there. She’ll look around and she’ll see me sat here, silent. She’ll ask me what I’m doing, why I’m not lying there next to her, and I won’t be able to tell her because I don’t know what the answer is. It feels like I don’t know anything anymore.