Olive Green Couch

I tried to savor the seconds slipping away, like sand falling between the fingertips of an open palm.

I could tell that she was falling out of love with me, but I chose to deny it. I couldn't believe it, how could her feelings stop when mine were so strong? How could I be so irrevocably in love with someone even though I knew the feeling wasn't being reciprocated?

I guess that's what Jane would do to people. She was hypnotic without even knowing it.

Everyone loved Jane. We met in college and she was the type of student that professors would recognize, even in large lectures. She always wore a smile on her face, drawing people in. She was magnetic, like the center of the earth.

I had no idea she would become the center of mine.

We met in a large lecture, our English class. She had gotten to the lecture late, scrambling to get a seat, and there just so happened to be an open one in between me and another guy. Jane sat down, flushed and out of breath from speed-walking in the scorching summer sun.

All she had to do was smile at me, and I immediately fell for her.

There was something in the way that her eyes crinkled up in all the right places and how her pink lips curled into a friendly grin that allured me. I had never seen anyone like her before, just looking at her felt like a privilege. I remember making eye contact for the first time, and she made me flush crimson red. Her eyes were powerful, they nearly melted me with a single glance in my direction.

We became close friends, exchanging phone numbers, conversations in the hallways, and shy smiles. The more I got to know her, the more I realized that she was everything I thought about, everything I talked about, and everything I wanted. Being around her became both unbearable and undeniably amazing. Whenever I was around her, I'd fall harder, and I would go home and scream with my face in my pillow because I was too afraid to tell her how I felt.

I was fascinated by her, and the lens she saw the world through. I loved the way she thought, how she would contemplate the simplest things that the everyday person wouldn't question. She made me realize nothing was simple. She was like a mystery, and I wanted to solve her.

Jane and I started dating when I kissed her after class.

I was never a brave person, but for Jane I would risk anything. She kissed me back, holding the sharp of my jaw with her left hand, her right hand resting gently on the curve of my hip. My heart nearly exploded with endorphins.

"Thanks," was all she said, looking down at her feet with a grin. And she shot me her smile, her infamous smile, and I was head over heels in love.

And so was she, for some time.

I never experienced love before I met Jane, and once I had her, I couldn't believe how lucky I was. I had a goddess of a girl, the girl of my dreams, right there in front of me. She was funny, creative, and smart. She hugged me, kissed me, and held me in ways I had only longed for before. I felt like a new person when I was around her, like a better version of my old self. She made me want to be a better person and inspired me to see the world in a new perspective. She changed me.

I found myself becoming entranced by her with every passing day. For a long time everything was perfect. Jane was perfect. We were perfect.

We moved in together, into a shitty studio apartment, the only type we could afford, and it smelled like weed because of our stoner neighbors. But to me, that shitty apartment was paradise. It was our own space, a place for us to be ourselves and to be together. We decorated it, bickering over what artwork to put on the walls, but I conceded to her. She let me pick the couch and I chose an olive green one, because olive green was her favorite color. We decided on the bedsheets and comforter together.

We would share clothes and makeup, her wardrobe morphed with mine and the scent of our laundry had become the same. It felt like we were an old married couple sometimes, even though we were just girlfriends. But, I did believe she would be the one I would marry.

It was the plainest of things that brought me the most happiness, whether we were doing laundry together or making dinner after class. I could watch paint dry with Jane and enjoy it. She made everything colorful and exciting.

It was our last year of college when I noticed her pulling away.

She would spend more time alone, claiming she was studying in the library or she had picked up extra shifts at work. Maybe she was really doing those things, but I would see her less and less at our shitty apartment. And the less she was there, the more shitty the apartment became, until it was almost every night I would be sitting on the olive green couch inhaling secondhand smoke, waiting for her to come home.

Jane never cheated on me, and oddly, that was the saddest part about the downfall of our relationship. She hadn't found someone she loved more than me, she would just rather be alone than in my presence. She slept faced the other way, and woke up earlier and went to bed later than I did. We stopped singing karaoke in the car on the way to class. She became more irritable, so I stopped trying to talk to her. We never even argued, we just lived in tense silence. I knew our relationship would soon become unsalvageable, so I tried to hold onto the last moments we would have together, because I still loved her, and I hated myself for loving someone who was cold to me.

She broke up with me a month before graduation. I saw it coming lightyears away, but I still begged her to stay. She shook her head and wiped tears that slid down her cheeks. I couldn't tell if they were real or crocodile tears.

"I just feel like we're at different parts of our lives, and I need to be alone for a while," was all she said, looking everywhere but at my eyes. She shot me a sad smile. "I still love you, Claire."

She packed all of her things in one night and left the shitty apartment. It was as if she had never lived there, her clothes gone from the closet, toothbrush missing from the sink, and artwork ripped off of the walls. All that was left that reminded me of her was the goddamn olive green couch.

I should have chose a gray couch.

I still don't understand why Jane left me, but if I had to guess, I would say she was too big of a person to be confined to me. She was born to run, while all I wanted to do was slow down. If she was made for greater things, than so be it, because I want what's best for her even if she doesn't want the same for me. I hate how much I will always love her, and I hate how much I relish in the memories we had since I know we won't make any more together.

I know it wasn't my fault. Maybe our time just simply ran out.