A Break In The Storm

A man has to decide how to break up with his partner on the way to a party.

On the way to the holiday party, he realised he was no longer in love with her and didn’t know how to tell her the truth without breaking her.  The realisation came over him like a blanket of guilt at the second set of lights out of town.  The thick snowflakes made driving a nightmare, with the bitter wind hurling the flakes like white bullets at his windshield.

He mulled over the advice of several of his friends as to how to do the deadly deed.

“Write her a letter”, said one.  And how would that start? Dear Sara? Hey? The minute she took the letter, she would know the conclusion of it without even reading it, and he could picture her collapsing to her knees sobbing with party-goers milling around her.  No, he couldn’t do that, far too public.  He didn’t want to crush or humiliate her.

The traffic entering the city were reduced to just two lanes, cars festooned with white powder as though they had been driving through clouds, crept along painstakingly slowly, drawing out the agony of the drive and his thoughts.

“One call...done”, said another, before slapping the bar with his hand.  But wasn’t that too severe?  Her happy-to-hear-him voice on the other side, the pretence of small talk beforehand.  “Oh, the party is getting into full swing, can’t wait till you’re here. By the way, dad wants you to bring his car back when you drive us around for dinner on Sunday.  Are you nearly there yet?”.  No.  The brutality of interjecting his voice into the delightful conversation would make him seem like Lucifer in disguise.  Hearing her voice crack under the weight heartbreak would be remembered in his eardrums for the rest of his life.

Negotiating the bustling city streets took a skill he had not yet mastered.  One-way systems seemed everywhere, and with the snowstorm gleefully hammering everything in sight, he had to pull over more than once to get his bearings.  The dread within the pit of his stomach came right up to the back of his throat.  Acids within him toiled and heaved, images of her during happier days played on his mind.  Her laugh and smile were images tattooed forever on his brain.

Maybe if he didn’t show up, or not tell her.  Give himself a few more days.  Yes, that sounded like a plan. He could prepare for the party like everyone else.  He knew everyone else had secrets and drama behind every phoney smile and the manly handshake.  They had just as much s**t going on as he did.  What was one more night of pretence?  But then, the girl at the office was expecting him that night. Maybe he was the devil right enough.

The long driveway to the enormous house on west side loomed out the storm, the snow dancing ecstatically around in anticipation of another, more human, storm.  The swirling wind for once was blowing with him and not against him, meaning he was almost running up the driveway, which was not what he had intended. The lights on all the rooms were on, and he could see and hear much shaking of hands and laughing.

Entering the vast hallway with a long red carpet, the spiralling staircase, straight out of a Disney story, caught his breath.  She was coming down them, her long legs in a flowing gown shimmering with positivity. 

His stomach grew tight.  Just one more night he thought.

She strode over to him, smiling at him as she neared.

“I’m sorry, but we’re over.  And have been for a while.  No more pretending", she said, nodding her head briefly.

With barely a break in her stride, she walked past him out the door and into the snow, catching her keys from the valet as she went.

She started her car, gunned the engine, and with barely a glance at the shocked pretender in the doorway, she roared off into the storm with the wind at her back.

Author's Note

Part of the #bepositivewritenow project to encourage aspiring writers to keep writing. First Sentence is given by an instagrammer , and I then write the story in less than 30 minutes (which is why I don't come back and re-edit anything. That would be cheating)