And after I capture the moment, she turns to me and smiles. Her hand comes up to wave at me, a wave of good-bye. This was the moment I was waiting for. I wave back at her and turn to walk away. I don’t watch where she walks to or if she decides to leave right then and there. It isn’t because I would break down, but because I knew that this moment together was not the last. It was better to part the way we did: mutual and friendly.

A YEAR AND A HALF LATER

I’m looking up at the window pane that has his name in large black letters. A smile creeps on my face, knowing that was not his choice. He probably battled the host of the gallery to have his name put up in lights. It was his lifelong dream to have his name, Lance Axigill-Park, put up high and bright in lights. I had told him it was unlikely for a photographer but to do what he could to achieve that goal.

A breeze picks up as I am glancing at this name still and I wrap my cardigan closer to me. I’m not sure why I was still standing outside in cold. What was I worried about? What could possibly go wrong if I stepped inside of the gallery? It wasn’t like we ended our relationship on a bad note. We had even spoken a couple of times since then; granted most dealt with mail and about this event, but we still spoke. He specifically had spoken to me over the phone about his exhibit that I was having trouble walking inside.

“God, get over it, Arienne. Walk your ass in and go wish him luck,” I muttered to myself.

But I still stood there waiting. Heart beating, hands sweating.

I then wiped my hands down my jeans, straightened my spine, and pulled the door open. Warm air greeted me with a sweet caress and I welcomed it. I could feel my then chilled bones start to melt. There was a sweet smell of cinnamon in the air; a scent that reminded me very much of Lance. He always smelled of cinnamon and coffee, a mixture that I always associated with creativity and home. Lance had always said that coffee was what fueled him to find a muse and that cinnamon relaxed him enough to delve into his mind for that muse. I had grown to love the smell and even after our split, I burned a cinnamon candle when I wrote; I was itching to write now.

As I entered the exhibit even more, my eyes wondered around the room, looking at all that was on display and what was to be offered. There were some of his photographs, most of which were landscapes like the Nile River, the Grand Canyon, and of the rice fields in Vietnam. I had seen most of his photos when we were together, but these were images that were new to me. He must have taken them in the past year. And alongside all of his photos were sculptors, paintings, and other pieces of art that showcased the place they represented. I knew these were not his because he didn’t have much of a knack for another media. When I looked closer to the names of the other pieces, I found that they were names of some of his friends.

It was a beautiful set up and I felt pride for him grow in my chest. He had done such a wonderful job with all of this and the turnout of people was amazing. I wanted to congratulate him terribly, but I could not find him. I knew that were a lot of people in this room but his dark head was not among them. It did seem that there was a lot of filtration of these art seekers and I began to move around the room even more to see where they were going. I eventually found that they were heading to a back part of the gallery; a back room that I did not know about. He had only mentioned that there was one room to be shown off. I then began to make my way to the back, hoping to find what was catching people’s eyes, as well as to find him.

As I was getting closer to the back room, I noticed that were a lot of people staring at me. I then began to get nervous, believing that I had looked a mess. It was possible that I had a large stain on my shirt or that my hair was nothing but fly aways and looked like a nest. I ran my hands over my head to smooth anything down and I looked down to see that I was stain free. Looks were still coming my way as I was entering the last part of the hallways to the back, but then they ceased some when I finally entered the room.

I immediately noticed the change in smell; it now smelled of coffee. I wanted a cup of it desperately. Another drastic change of the atmosphere was that the lights were out. The room was illuminated by hundreds of fairy light strings. They hung from the ceiling, lined the walls, and encircled some of the photographs. Upon further investigation, I saw that were strings that had pictures at the end of them. Pictures of familiar landscapes and monuments, all in black and white. But there were also pictures of Lance among them and…

A gasp escaped my lips, there are photos of me too. Some of me with Lance, some standing in front of the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben, others are candid. Not only are they hanging from the ceiling but they are some on the walls and some were on large pedestals. They were all over the room, each one evoking a different memory.

My heart filled with joy yet sadness. These were precious memories that we had made together and he was sharing them with the world. He was sharing our love and our adventures together. And it wasn’t like I minded, it was just a reminder of what we had together and how right everything had felt during our high times.

I walked up to a particular photo that took me back to one of our high times together. It was a fond morning in April while we were in Paris. It was the morning after a passionate night of love making and the picture was of me sitting in a wooden desk chair at the writing desk in our room. My body was basically bare except for the sheet that was slightly wrapped around me. I was looking out of the window, smoke hanging in the air around me while I puffed on a cigarette. The hand holding the cigarette was sitting bent up in the air on the arm of the chair while my head slightly rested against the same hand. It was a very cliché picture to take while in Paris, but it captured me -a fluent mess- in a beautiful moment.

And I only remembered this picture being taken because after Lance took the shot, I had heard him sigh in ecstasy which caused me to turn and face him. I then walked over to him and we proceeded to spend the rest of the morning having sweet and slow sex.

I snapped back from the memory and walked away from the pedestal. My body was now riddled with gooseflesh. More memories tried to flood my mind, causing me to feel unsettled and making me want to find Lance even more.

But when I turned around completely, I was faced with the direct back wall and I could feel my heart grip. Blown up on the wall, framed in fairy lights, was a picture of woman standing and looking up at a ruined domed building. A sense of familiarity washed over me but I could not pinpoint where I had seen the structure before. I walked closer to it and realized exactly who this woman was, where it was taken, and what had happened on that day.

It was me looking at the Hiroshima Dome Memorial on the last day we had been together. My hair and cardigan were blowing in the wind to the right. My head was tilted back; I remember being in awe of the place. But I didn’t remember him taking this picture like I did with all of the others.

In the bottom corner was Kurt Vonnegut’s famous line in bold white letters: So It Goes.

“Do you like it?” a familiar rough voice asks.

I jump when I see a mutual friend of mine and Lance’s.

“Horace!” I hug him, “I very much love the exhibit. He did an amazing job.”

Horace smiles. “It’s his masterpiece, this back room I mean. It took him months to get it all just right but it has turned into something truly beautiful.”

“I’m surprised he put so many pictures of our life together in it. Not that I don’t mind but…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

“Arienne, you were always his muse.”

I was then struck a little speechless and before I could try to mutter a word, my eyes laid on Lance. My heart began to quicken and my palms were slowly starting to sweat. I didn’t know what to do. Do I approach him like I planned? Or just stand there and see if he approached? There were people that were still staring at me, including Horace; I couldn’t handle it. Lance was still looking at me for what I am sure was only seconds but felt like years.

I then turned on my heel to walk out of the back room and quickened my pace when I got to the front room. I then promptly exited at a greater speed and burst outside. The cold air slammed into lungs, that I know realized were heaving, but I welcomed the bitterness. My mouth opened to suck in more air as I turned to walk down the sidewalk. I had no real destination in mind, but I needed to get away from this building.

It had begun to snow and I was cursing myself for not having the foresight to bring a jacket to go over this cardigan. But for now I was just going to wrap my arms around me even tighter and continue on this aimless walk.

Why did I leave? Why did the pressure of actually seeing him make me act so rash? He had never caused me to feel uneasy like I did in that moment. Lance had always given me the sense of comfort and love. But when I had seen him after so long, my mind and heart could not handle it. It wasn’t because of the terms we had left on; maybe it was because in that moment I realized how much I did still love him.