Not What He Expects

The first thing Sam noticed as the door to the apartment slid open, growing pillars composed of the fluorescent light from the hall across the wood floor, was that she’d taken the art. Only after his eyes adjusted to the dark did he notice the note tastefully pinned to the fridge by the magnetized, cartoonshily proportioned depiction of the school mascot Esme bought him for his birthday last year.

Some nagging part of him berated him for not noticing that first, but it that tiny pinprick was a drop in the ocean of anguish that filled his gut as he paced this way and that, looking around at the rest of the place. Without her art hanging anywhere there was space, the apartment felt so… lifeless. Without the lovingly crafted paintings depicting fuzzy, impressionistic vistas on alien planets, the sense of homely familiarity that normally pervaded Sam’s place of residence was reduced to a mind-numbing, stock IKEA landscape. He wasn’t mad. After all, she really loved the pieces she put up. He remembered the long nights of post-coital deliberation spent carefully selecting each one according to what it added to the room. Up until now, the one thing that hurt Sam about Esme was how little credence she gave to her passions, but with her upbringing it wasn’t hard to see why she felt the way she did.

He ambled around the rest of the apartment to see what other vestiges of lost love had been swept away, mostly to avoid looking at the note. The bedroom remained relatively untouched saved for the closet and shared dresser which appeared like it had been swept into a tornado. The bathroom looked like it had always only had one occupant as well save for a small toiletry bag filled with various face creams and lotions. He wafted for a bit, holding the bag in one hand and his phone in another like a sick balancing act. He stared at his lock-screen until it went black, before reactivating his phone and repeating the process one more time. The trashcan between the sink and toilet made a loud, crackling thud as the bag careened into it, before the automatic whir of it closing sent the room back into silence. He would have to read it, wouldn't he? It would have been nice to have a talk, but it was clear from the moment she’d leapt out of the bed that Esme had no intention of staying around. Damage control was easier if you told yourself there was no damage.

Slowly but surely, Sam made his way back to the kitchenette and retrieved the note before retreating into the warm light of the bedside lamp. The handwriting was shit, hastily scribbled but from the first sentence, and judging by the first sentence, Sam knew this was going to hurt.