I went outside and wept. It was hard, hearing it like that and I didn't want anyone else to see me. If it had been you, you'd have done the same. When your face goes rosy pink and your throat feels like it might burst, your eyes start to go water blind, there's no stopping it coming out. I knew it was going to happen but I didn't want to hear it that way.

As I stood outside, I thought about all the time I'd had to get in there first. As the wind blew harshly into my tears and made trees shout my news across the rest of the city I just wanted to shout with them.

All that time I'd wasted, all those people I'd never let myself be and they'd slipped away, dying their own deaths as I'd forgotten them one at a time and slogged on. How many of them could have been real? How many of them could have been me?

Image from here