content: Account Deleted By User I'm fighting for a parking spot to attend my own funeral. A microcosm of my life this past year. Side streets, no luck. Parking garage On principle alone I'm not paying for this. If she's dragging me here for this you think she'd have the deceny to bring me to a place with a lot. I finally find one and begin to walk down the brisk, wintry street. Christmas shoppers and drunk college students weave past one another. They levitate past me, I feel every ounce of weight in my feet. I think of what my friend said last night, Maybe it'll be good. You don't know yet. Mm, maybe as we sip our beer and change the subject. No reason to dwell, we both know he's wrong. I walk in, the bells on the door jingle. I make a bee-line to order a coffee. A few indecisive people ahead of me, oh can I try a sample of that Wait a second. Why would I bring snacks and drinks to an event like this I find her sitting alone at a table in the back with a fixed stare on her cup of tea, twirling the string on the bag. She looks pretty, as usual, even though she never thought she was. At this point the thin veil of mental stocism tucks tail and darts for the door. She doesn't see me approaching. My words grab her attention. I know why I'm here, let's just get this over with. You know, she says, obviously caught off guard. I knew a week ago. Just from the tone of her invitation a few days prior I knew the reason for the season's meeting. Although it didn't leave me with an immediate boulder in my stomach, like when people say 'we need to talk'. She caught me by surprise last time. Ripped the rug out from under the table that my life was so neatly placed on. A knockout suckerpunch from a 100 pound redhead. This time I knew what to look for. With watery eyes she says I can't see you anymore. We exchange the usual questions one would ask in this scenario. Holding back tears, but only being partially successful, she says I'm trying not to make a scene. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a cramped coffee house, where I'm knocking elbows with strangers, isn't really the most appropriate venue for this sort of thing. But hey, it beats what I was rewarded with after our original three-year stint together, an out-of-nowhere phone call saying she's throwing her towel in. It's ok. In the opening minute we have said all that needs to be said, yet I can tell we both have an urge to sit and savor our final moments together. Seasonal songs play over the speakers. Thanks Andy Williams, but it really isn't the most wonderful time of the year. We break up the melodies of cheery tunes about chestnuts & reindeer with occasional rehashed phrases. Just get up and leave. Say goodbye. There's nothing left to be said. Let go. On the contrary, trusty brain of mine, there's much left to express. Get it out now. It's your last shot. Here we go You know what As much as I love you more than you'll ever know, I hate you just as much. I hate how you gave up so easily. I hate how you became the complete opposite of who you used to be. How ungrateful you were of me. How you showed zero emotion when I showed you the apartment when we were moving in together. How when you went to bed early one night and left your diary open on the couch to the 'things I'm grateful for' page I didn't even place. Candles though, they placed. But me, who you've known for seven years, was nowhere to be found on your list. Fuck you. Rot. In Hell. Did the patrons spill their coffee in fear at an unraveling, yelling man as the chorus to Frosty The Snowman came to a halt with a record scratch No. A I wish you well, I love you, a long hug with a whispered I'll miss you sprinkled in for good measure. That was all that was mustered up. The strangers around us knew nothing of what happened here. The smoke from years of friendship, years of relationship, and months of a half-hearted attempt at a second chance; they all whisked away silently into the ceiling fan. On the walk out I didn't look back, like they do in the movies. The bells on the door jingled the same leaving as they did on the way in. I fought for a parking spot to attend my own funeral. I pulled out of that spot on my rebirth without another car in sight.