angsty love stories

the night before christmas - 20/01/2021

ok i was 13 but same thing ew i cannot believe this was literally last year

There was a brief respite before he realized his supposed "slip-up". While mindlessly sipping and chatting with other people that should have always been her, his mind swiftly sweeping through his thoughts, the twenty-sixth meet-up that he had forgotten due to work, in his defense, had suddenly crossed his mind. At first, it was just like a cloud landing atop of his head, but once he had registered it in his mind, alarms were going off left and right. The immediacy of him standing up and an alarmed expression painted on his once amusingly calm face had caused the entire row sitting at the bar to abruptly stand up, all quickly bombarding him with questions and confused questionings. Eyes following as his figure and the coat that he had cradled tightly in his hands disappeared through the glass-framed doors, they all froze, disoriented at the situation that had just unraveled.

It was a bitter winter night, and the cold had covered the city in thick layers of snow, built up from the previous nights. It was Christmas Eve, after all. All the streets were empty, and the warmth and the lights emanating from the shops were long gone, the hand of the clock hitting midnight the moment he had stepped out of the doors of the bar.

Frantically, the soles of his boots crunching against the glassed ice that had lightly covered the pavement echoed down the bare road, and he ran from street to street, attempting to find an unoccupied cab that he could take.

With a dry mouth and a momentary pause, he had forced himself into a taxi as soon as it gradually slowed down near him, squinting as he muttered barely audible words of the address. Forcefully, he grabbed a fist of his hair, releasing it as soon as another realization dawned upon him.

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She sat on the backless wooden stool, as cheers erupted around her and mere strangers had wrapped their arms around each other, embracing the other as the clock struck midnight.

All of those strangers are now just nameless figures to her now. Funnily enough, these strangers were willing to share such a sentimental act with someone they might never see any again in their life, but she couldn't even simply look at her so-called-partner in the eye.

She gripped her hands tight around her mug, knuckles whitening as she took a sip out of it.

The liquid in her mug wasn't getting any warmer, and certainly not the one across from hers. As each minute passed, she felt the hope that she once felt when she entered the restaurant falter. Christmas, the season of perpetual hope and love. She shook her head and laughed dryly, and turned to the window across from her, glass fogging as she sighed.

What a fool I am, she laughed. What I fool I am, to even think of the possibility that he could have cared enough to come.

She couldn't fathom what she was even feeling at this point. She was worn out, numb, and didn't have the strength nor energy to even hold up her head. Gradually, her head resting against the cold glass, her coat pressed up against her was the only comforting and warm thing she's had standing by her these past few months.

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The air was like broken mirrors digging into his skin, turning it a bright red. The bone-chilling gust of wind blew his hair into spikes.

After getting out of the cab and the taxi driver's yells of anger emitting from behind for not closing the door, he could barely run towards the restaurant.

Once the door had slammed open, his distraught eyes scanned the tables, to only meet hers last. When he tried to look deeper, and farther into her eyes, all he was met with was her empty and deserted ones. All of what was there before was completely gone, devoid of much emotion.

When he tried to approach closer, to even make an effort and moved closer, she stood up, making him cower away at what might happen next.

As time ticked by, she approached him.

She did exactly what he had feared, but he should have seen it a long time coming.

"Merry Christmas."

And with that, her coat wrapped around her, she was gone.

He was left with nothing but eventual grief and sorrow as he listened to each thud of her boots, leading up to the tolling of the chimes near the door as it opened.

All he saw in front of him were the remains of what could have been their future. She didn't leave on Christmas, but had left long ago when he didn't give enough.