When I don’t reply, lost in confusion, she continues. ‘You are moving on.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Paris, the car…the apartment…everything.’ She sums it up and spreads her arms in a gesture that is supposed to explain everything. When Bette obviously didn’t want me around anymore and I decided to move to Paris, I was happy when Renee told me that our old apartment was available for rent. It was nice to be living next door again, but most of all, it’s the only place where I could feel a sense of home, if I weren’t to be with Bette. Sure the memories keep on haunting me, but there are moments as well when the memories have a soothing effect on me and I feel close to her.

‘Do you think that’s moving on?’

‘It sure looks like it.’

‘Hm.’ It pains me to see how much we grew apart that she doesn’t even recognize why I do certain things. Sure, I probably went about it all wrong, but I’m lost and confused and all I want to feel is that connection with her again.

‘Next thing you will tell me is that you met someone and…’

Leaning her elbow on the arm rest she turns her head away and starts rubbing her forehead, with her eyes tightly shut. The whole picture shows just how lost she is and no matter how much I am hurting I can’t be that cruel to let her torture herself thinking I moved on and forgot about her. Slowly I walk around the bed and sit down on it in front of her.

‘Look at me.’ When she doesn’t I place my hand against her cheek and turn her head to me. ‘I can’t deny that I wished many times that I could move on. But I couldn’t….I can’t…not yet.’

‘I don’t know what to think anymore.’ Leaning her cheek slightly into my hand that I couldn’t make myself to remove after feeling the softness of her skin, she closes her eyes again and lets out a soft whimper.

‘Do you even know what you want?’

‘Turn back time and erase everything that happened.’ A small smile curls up her lips as she leans her cheek even more against my palm. She was always a dreamer. The more romantic one, while I am the more practical one. She was always the one floating somewhere in the clouds, lifting me up with her, while I was the one standing firmly on the ground, to ground us when needed.