Burst

"I don't love you anymore."

They were sat in a beer garden. Around them, the raucous laughter of summer-saturated groups, dressed in pastels and wearing sunglasses, like a golden advert for glorious life. Small children raced past, dodging through adults like they were pixies in a forest of tall trees, taking no care and screaming the wild screams of the unmoderated. Someone had a bubble gun and small rainbow-veiled spheres glided by, wobbling slightly as the light summer breeze propelled them.

Marie had been thinking about how nice it was to feel warmth on her skin and had closed her eyes to savour it. Ross had been so miserable. It had been her suggestion to go for a drink in a beer garden; it was something that they always used to do. She wasn't sure when they'd stopped. She felt like she had to shake him out of his torpor, as she saw it, because it had been going on for weeks.

Surrounded by the vitality of others had made Marie see that their life together was sedentary, lacking colour, monotonous, and had prompted the question. He had been sat brooding, not speaking despite her best attempts and in the end, she had simply said, although perhaps a little abruptly and with a "For God's sake" infront of it:

"What's the matter with you?"

She had not been expecting the answer Ross gave. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting but it wasn't that and she was struck down by it, like a thundering bowling ball hitting a tenpin.

Suddenly, the vibrant atmosphere didn't feel like the right place to be. But Ross had started and like water bursting through a crack in concrete, it was all flowing out.

He was staring at his pint, not her. She was glad of her sunglasses.

"It's not someone else. I know I've been down. I knew something was wrong but I just couldn't think what it was."

Marie was silent. His words stifled her voice.

"And then, sat here, in all this," he gestured around them, "I realised. I don't love you anymore."

A bubble floated by and rather aptly, Ross reached out and popped it.

***

366 words

I'm on holiday. "Whoopee!" I hear you cry! So, the reason I am telling you this is because you are about to be bombarded by a whole load of stories. I suggest eking them out a little or of course, you can binge read. I'm not prescriptive in my advice. Normal service will resume in 15 days. In the meantime, please do comment. I will try and answer as and when I can. Please do not mistake my absence for ingratitude. One of the greatest things about this platform is the interaction I have with all of my readers. I will get back to you when I can.

2 days until the big 200! How exciting!

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