This is more than just never seeing your best friend again.
This is losing something she can never regain.
This is the end of a story that had hundreds of pages to go.
This is the dream of falling that never ends.
And oh god, it hurts. It hurts more than anything that she'd been through before, because now this pain was permanently stuck in her throat, and whenever his name was about to pass her lips, it would split her open from the inside out.
Now her chest felt like lead, whenever she inhaled and exhaled, it slowly crushed her ribcage.
Her bones were the dust of memories that will never occur.
It isn't fair, that the girl who gave up so fucking much from such a young age, would even have to give up her soulmate before the ripe old age of 27.
She always thought burning bright and fast would be poetic, but now she'd give anything to be a boring suburban housewife with him, if only.
But there is no point in what ifs.
There is only moving forward.
And if forward is the terrible choice of giving up the memories of her soulmate, than fuck, she has to do it.
Because she is the most logical person she knows, and keeping these lovely things inside her will turn her blood and muscles and organs into sugary sweet mush, that will kill her from the inside out.
And though mortals and Gods alike believe her to be foolish, she knows better than them all.
So she swings her legs off the bed, and walks toward the kitchen, past the pictures she will not know by the evening, past the stupid throw pillows her stepmom gave them as a housewarming gift. Past the bookshelves, filled with tomes she read out loud as they slowly fell asleep, past the threadbare armchairs he insisted they buy at the thrift store.
And past the little velvet box, something she received just 5 months ago.
She feels the goosebumps crawl their way up her back, once she steps onto the unforgiving tiles of the kitchen floor. Two scoops of ground coffee. Three cups of water. Two presses of the temperature button.
She saves so much money on coffee now.
The microwave clock reads 7:35 am.
She has under six hours until the procedure. The information packet she received in the mail 6 days ago says to only pack items that have minimal attachment to the person you will be forgetting.
That might be hard, seeing as almost everything in this apartment, they bought together.
So as the coffee brews, she throws her curls into a ponytail and double checks the final assortment of items laid on the dining table, the only things she'll bring with her into this new life.
Two pairs of skinny jeans. Three shirts. One singular book on architecture. Her tiny makeup bag. A few pairs of underwear. One pair of shoes. One jacket. A couple pairs of socks. Sunglasses. The treasured summer camp necklace. Her laptop, with all traces of him wiped. A notebook and pen. Address book. And her faded backpack.
The coffee maker beeps, and she counts the objects one more time.
After pouring herself a mug, she puts on some of the plain clothing previously picked out. A black long sleeved shirt. Blue skinny jeans. Black vans. Dull green jacket. Faded backpack containing the rest of her life.
She downs the dregs of her mug and grabs her keys, leaving the dirty dishes in the sink. They won't be her problem come tomorrow.
Her watch reads 8:01.
It's time to head to the train station.
She locks the scuffed door behind her, and leaves the newspaper on the welcome mat.
Won't need the NYC news anymore, she'll be free from that.
The station is only a ten minute walk, and this will be the last of countless strolls through the concrete jungle she has called home for three and a half years.
Doesn't matter now. She won't even remember the glint of sunlight off the tops of skyscrapers by morning.
The station is meticulously clean, seeing as the departures side of the platform has just opened for business. After retrieving her ticket from the machine, she takes a seat near the front of the train tunnel, and waits.
And when her train arrives, she doesn't look back on the city, not even once.
It takes over three hours to reach her destination
Once the steel doors slide open, it's only a matter of getting to the clinic. The doctors said the soulmate removal procedure only takes half an hour, and then she can begin her life again.
Just without him.
Surprisingly, the taxi driver she called knows exactly where the offices are, and they're under one hour from here.
Now her watch reads 11:38. She will not remember him in an hour and twenty-two minutes. She isn't sure if this is reassuring or frightening, but her brain says go, and she has no reason to dispute her very logical choices.
It's either this path or a life of half-assing it.
She doesn't have a choice.
After paying the driver, she looks at her watch again.
12:32 pm.
The building in front of her is modern, with big sliding glass doors. They open without a sound.
The polished looking woman at the reception desk tells her the sixth floor is where Dr. Richards' office is located, and good luck!
She chooses to smile back politely and press the elevator button.
The hallway leading to the office is completely bare, except for the sunken white doors leading to more professional settings.
The second to last door on the left has an identical plaque to the rest of them, but reads "Clinic for Memory Services."
When she pushes it open, there is only one desk, with three waiting chairs against the other wall and a glass door in the back. The middle aged lady sitting at this table smiles sadly at her, and motions her over, presumably to check in.
"Mrs. Chase?"
"Yes."
"Just give us your fingerprint here and sign this one last piece of paperwork, and then you can go straight through that door to my right."
She did as was asked, and went through the door.
There was no reason to look back, just as there was no reason to see New York one last time.
But if she had looked back, she would have seen the one thing that maybe could have changed her stubborn choice.
A mop of black hair, sea green eyes, and a screaming voice she never heard.
A man pounding on the glass door trying to get her attention, before she did the logical thing and went on without her soulmate, the person she though was dead.
Yet it wasn't enough, because the universe loves stories with twist endings, and this would be the ultimate Love Story, with the greatest loss of all at the end.
And if the girl had just turned around the final time before sitting in the medical chair, she would see that all her careful planning over the last four months wasn't needed, because the pain she needed to forget would be erased right then.
She didn't
He screamed through a locked door as his soulmate was injected with the serum to forget him.
There was nothing that could be done, because the choice had been made for them.
And now one of them would spend their life knowing the person they were made for, and the other will never know.
As her eyes began to droop closed, the chair swung around.
She thought he was a hallucination, another trick created by her abused brain to tease her.
And finally, her eyelids fell shut.
And he sunk to the floor.