This is how it starts (ends).

             Amber woke up on the 13th of July at 7:00 in the morning like it’s just any other weekend. She navigates through the blanket and when she doesn’t find him there, fumbles for her fuzzy slippers and sleep-walks to the kitchen.

            Just like any other ordinary Sunday in their apartment, she is greeted by the smell of coffee and toast.

            “Good morning Amber”

            She gives him a half-hearted and sleepy smile, and sets her phone beside his.

            “Good morning”

            Just like any other ordinary Sunday, he pushes the button on the coffee machine, and procures two cups of black coffee. He sets one in front of Amber, and one opposite her. She gets the toast from the oven, spreads butter all over them and settles it on the middle of the table. The jam comes after, and soon enough the carton of milk and the packets of sugar were on the table as well.

            When Amber has already poured milk and sugar on the cup in front of her and Henry has already placed two packets of sugar on his, they exchange cups and silence.

            The coffee was perfect, the morning was serene, and the silence was comforting. They sip their drinks quietly, munch on their breakfast every now and then, and just generally bask in the silence that they both enjoy. It was their routine of sorts, their somewhere in between and their own kind of comfort.

            Really, it was just an ordinary day in an ordinary week of their ordinary lives.

            Until it wasn’t.

            The most unsuspecting fraction of a moment triggers it. But don’t all bad things start like that? One moment everything was fine and running, and the littlest things will blow it up; a snap of a finger, a thunder clap, a whistle.

            Or in this case, a phone, ringing incessantly throughout the apartment.

            The first mistake is when Henry stops munching on his breakfast and looks at his phone.

            The second mistake is he lets Amber see the caller I.D.

            “Who’s that?” she asks, as seemingly nonchalant as she could. He shrugs and ignores the call, puts his phone in silent mode and looks into her eyes as innocently as possible. “Nothing it’s just for work”

            They say our lives are summaries of the choices we make. The chances we didn’t take, or the ones we did. They rewrite our stories with simple occurences that seemed mundane, but the slightest changes of heart could warrant the biggest changes.

            Like when Amber asks, “Do we have a problem?”. When Henry freezes over the question, looking at her like a deer in headlights. And when the most innocent of questions could switch on the biggest of monsters. A chance taken, a choice made.

            She takes a deep breath. “Because I hate being the clueless one, you know that. But everyday it just feels like there’s something that I can’t see, something broken or something missing. It feels like we’re in this rut and I’m the only one who can’t find the way out. So tell me please, in the most honest way you could, do we have a problem, Henry?”

            In this moment, where two people are cornered to the point of no return, a million questions pop into their heads. How about this? Or that? What will happen next? What do we have to lose?

            But really, the most important question, the one Amber answers when Henry doesn’t;

            Is it still worth it?

            She looks up and meets his eyes. “It’s that girl who just called, right?”
            There was nothing Henry could do but nod.

            Is it still worth it? The question just lingers in the air. In this moment of fragility (or reassurance), the question is just a big elephant in the room. An insistent knock on the door, the neverending reminder of how this; this could be the end.

            Is it still worth it?

            Henry finally answers it.

            “I’m so sorry Amber”

            Maybe she has always known it, or maybe she didn’t prepare enough for when this happens. But needless to say the first tears that dropped were a surprise, both for him and her. She laughs at the irony.

            “I always said I would never cry because of you. Yet here I am.” She said, as she tried to stop the tears from falling, but she couldn’t. Every second that passed is a painful one, accompanied with the endless falling of tears. Sob upon sob upon sob; until she felt like there were not enough tears to manifest whatever this is she’s experiencing.

            Then a hand suddenly brushed through her face, and she lifts her head to meet his eyes.

            “That’s just because I promised I’d never let you. And I’m sorry Amber, for breaking that. And everything else”

His gaze told her everything, there was nothing more she needed to know.

            Of the regret, of the guilt, of how sorry he was. For all the promises that he made and had broken, for the pain and for the false hope. For the memories, happy or not. For the nights when she don’t need to sleep alone, for the Friday night lights and expensive dinner dates. For the days when they would just lay down on the worn-down sofa, doing nothing but be thankful for each other. For the fights that seemed to never end, for the almost break-ups and the make-ups. For all the first times they shared together; for the possible lasts. For the birthdays and anniversaries and all the other occassions that they both made special, for the times he made her happy and vice versa.

            For the promises of forever, and for the moment when it ends.

            She takes a deep breath, exhaling yesterday and inhaling tomorrow. She lets his hand drop from her face, and drags her phone out of the table. The chair squeeks against the tiled floor as she stood up and let her back face him, taking one step further away.

            But before she could turn away, she stops and looks back at him. “I just had to ask, why?”
            He takes a moment to halt, and then he speaks. “I guess, there’s just that moment when two people are too comfortable with each other that there’s just.... nothing. Just nothing but comfort. It’s the middle ground, I guess; the in-between. And what people do with that comfort is entirely up to them. But us; I think we took advantage of it.”

            Amber smiled at him, and more tears fall. She grips her phone between her shaking hands and lets the sobs subside. “The funny thing is, I couldn’t be mad at you. I want to, but I can’t. Maybe because I know it’s just not you, but it’s also me. I always knew it was going to happen but I forced myself to think otherwise. And I didn’t do anything to keep you. I’m also sorry for that”

            It started out like an ordinary day. Waking up early, breakfast on the dining table, the coffee and the silence. But the thing is, it wasn’t any other day.

            This is the day that they break up.

            And sure, by next morning, things would have changed. His personal effects will be out of the apartment, and she would have cried rivers by then. A week will pass, months, a year. He will be single again by then, and she would have found another man. She will be happy, and he will too, in their own little ways. They will think about each other once in a while; when they eat at their favorite restaurant, when she sees a passing photo or when he hears her song on the radio. They will occasionally meet, share pleasantries at that, and they will have no regrets because somewhere along the way, they will learn to accept what they have become.

            Eventually, things will change.

            But they will always have that moment, when he stands up from his chair and takes those steps towards her, takes her in his arms and places a kiss on her forehead. That moment when more tears fall and more pieces break, when he whispers I’m sorry and she nods back.

             That moment of the perfect and most beautiful of goodbyes.

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a/n: I have ZERO knowledge of break ups so feel free to give me your reactions.