More from my book:
They left the following day, and had left behind a large bottle of Blackthorn Cider in the fridge. I lazily drank it throughout the afternoon, ruminating on travel while thinking about Sarah; her fragrant hair and how it fell over her shoulders and how those auburn eyes – mischievous and passionate – drove me crazy. After dating for fourteen months, I wasn’t really sure how she truly felt about new boyfriend bailing on regular life to go travel.
How was it that I’d met this beautiful woman now? Here was the one I could marry and raise kids with, yet I’d met her, what? Ten years too early? Those eyes that shone with a dark sparkle and the way her mouth formed a smile so beautifully it seemed the natural state of her face. I thought myself a complete fool for having left her, reasoning that someone more stable would be more deserving of her affections.
I smiled, recalling her playful jabs about my early climacteric swirled between the temples. She’d given me a mixed CD on the day I’d left. I’d listened to it a few times, but it was the thoughtfully made sleeve that made it one of my best-packed items; a picture of us on a beach with a handwritten caption:
Again, we come across men who have passed through casual love-affairs and realize only from the subsequent effects that they had been passionately in love with the person whom they had apparently regarded lightly.
– S.F.