Broken Strings

C H A P T E R N I N E T E E N

Promises she didn't want to acknowledge.

Because it was the same promises and words of hope that had ruined her.

And she hated reminiscing about the days of when they had been young, roaming the streets of Santa Monica, hand in hand, hearts beating together and eyes set on each other.

She hated thinking about those days.

Because all she could ever take away from those memories was that he had once loved her.

He had once loved her. And they had been happy together. They had been so happy together.

They had been perfect together.

Everything had been perfect.

She had loved him. He had loved her.

And she hated thinking about the days they had been young and in love.

Because all she could think about was how he had once loved her. And how he had stopped.

How he had stopped.

Andrew had fallen out of love with her.

It was all just a bunch of bullshit.

All empty promises. All broken strings. All shattered hope.

Her mother had been right.

It was all Anisha's fault. She couldn't keep Andrew in love with her. There was nothing about her to love.

She wasn't the kind of girl Andrew wanted. And it was her fault. It was always her fault.

But she looked away from Andrew's intense gaze and instead looked around the small ice cream shop. Every small memory slowly came back.

It was the same ice cream shop.

The same shop where he had kissed her outside of, passionately under the starry sky. The same shop where he had held so gently and with so much care as he finally confessed he loved her.

It was the same stupid ice cream shop. The same fucking ice cream shop.

Of course now, eighteen years later, it had been renovated. The counters had been polished. The walls repainted a brighter shade of berry. Many new flavors of ice cream had been added to the menu.

And when she looked around, she could see many young couples, sitting at tables, holding hands and sharing promises of love.

Maybe it was just the shop. It still held an aura of promise and affection around it. It held a certain promise to it.

At least for her, it did.

Because it was at this small ice cream shop, Anisha had first fallen in love. It was here she learned how it felt to truly want and love someone. To want and love everything about a single person. It was here that she had first realized how strongly and deeply she loved Andrew.

It was funny how the random ice cream shop had given her the hope for a happy future, for a perfect ending.

It had given her hope that she had found her happily-ever-after. That she had found her prince charming. That she really was getting a fairytale style ending.

And she could still remember it. Remember how he had looked at her with so much care and love as he had whispered the three words that had changed everything.

And she had believed him. Believed that he truly did love her.

She finally looked back him, her heart in many broken pieces and her days filled with nothing but sadness. "I don't like sprinkles anymore."