Your Key.
It was just one lonely key lying right there on the floor. Nothing more nothing less. But he would never have expected it be there – he always thought she would throw it at his face in the middle of a fight or maybe put it in a letter so she would never have to see him again. But no she had come back put the key gently on the table with a little note saying "Your Key – Please return mine." He almost remembered why she had left – he just didn't remember how the key had ended up on the floor or how the note had even come into his flat. She could not have left it there and had she left it before she left he was certain he would have noticed.
Two nights earlier.
"I just don't know if I can stay after you … I can't even make myself say it! I just don't think I should keep living here."
"Please won't you just stay. Please I promise it will never happen again and I'll deal with the consequences, so you will never even notice. Please just…"
"That Michael was the problem in the first place – I didn't notice – ANYTHING!"
"Sydney please calm down. I promise I will take care of it just stop yelling – everybody in the entire building can hear you."
"What is wrong you don't want anybody to know how you lied to me about EVERYTHING"
Sydney's voice was getting louder and louder and more of a screeching noise instead of something that sounded remotely human. She was frustrated after finding out that not only was he not who he had told her over the years but he had also betrayed her on numerous occasions.
He seemed to have become silent – mute – as if he had lost the ability to speak and just stood staring at her and how she kept exploding over and over again.
After Sydney had stormed around the flat yelling for another 10 minutes but both came to an abrupt end when she collapsed and sank into the darkness that was exhaustion.
"-dney … Sydney… Sydney"
"… Michael … no let me go… "
Sydney didn't feel the hard wooden floors of the living room but the soft cotton of their once shared bed and the sweet smells and soft light and colours of their shared bedroom. This was the one place she did not want to be ever again – it reminded her of him and all the sweet things he had said and done over the years. She could not bear being here again especially with him sitting next to the bed looking so worried and concerned like she was once again all that mattered and everything still was normal and how they should have been.
"I need to get out" she said and stormed out the flat and started running down the stairs. She had successfully gone stories down when she suddenly fell again and this time there was no Michael to catch as she fell – so she fell long and she fell hard.
As she lay there at the bottom of the staircase she felt how time became even more abstract while she drifted in and out of consciousness and she did not notice the red puddle that had begun to form underneath her lap – slowly but surely draining and swallowing her.