Farewell variation...

She was running out of time, she knew it and it only made things but worse. He would be back in about one hour. Just in one hour, she thought. After so many weeks struggling with herself and with the idea of leaving him, an hour seemed an extremely short period of time. But it is not always length that matters most, but rather how intense emotions are. And right now, her emotions had gone wild. She had written the farewell note five times so far. And in each, she could never be entirely satisfied. You cannot put your life into a few lines just like that. But then, she was not prepared for yet another confrontation. Everything had already been said, and most of the times lately, bitterness had been present along each step of the way. She also knew he wouldn't be surprised at that. Not at all. But he would cry in despair, as the child he still was some times, and she didn't want to be there. She couldn't stand it. That bit she knew…

Thirty minutes went by, and there she was, sitting in his desk, chopping their lives to a mere one hundred words. How much pain can you express in three paragraphs? Well, too much, she correctly guessed. She read once more what was meant to be the end of their relationship, just to reassure herself that she was taking the right decision.

Dear _________,
After the last month, this note can hardly come as a surprise to you. I've seen your face as you entered home during this week, and each time you were afraid I would be no longer here. Well, the time has finally come. Please forgive me for not being able to say good bye face to face.
I hope you will understand all the tiny pieces on time. Even if you might think now that I'm leaving you for no apparent reason, please, believe me, it's all the better for both.
Finally, I have written this again and again, and in all cases, the only sentence I would not change is this: "I still love you…"

_______

And that was all. She folded both the page and her emotions carefully before putting them into an envelope. A bitter smile of satisfaction played around her lips. At last she had achieved what she had set out to do…


This is a composition that I wrote as an exercise while taking English lessons along time ago. I had recently moved to Derby (East Midlands - UK), so that was possibly in Spring 2000. There was a limit in the number of words and, besides, the two last sentences were fixed and you had to work out the story from them.

I haven´t made any corrections, just copy-pasted the story from an old e-mail which brought back some nice memories...