Corners of My Mind

One door closes

(different narrator)

3 months earlier 

The apartment was empty, the kind of silence that permeates every space until it is deafening in your mind. Despite the silence, the walls seemed to remember the shouting that had occurred yesterday, the mirrors seemed to remember me on my knees, papers on the floor, and the slam of the door that shook the whole apartment. 

I stayed there for so long that as the sun came up I gravitated toward that very spot, trying to disperse the fog in my brain that wouldn't relent, wouldn't let me feel this. 

My girlfriend of the past 6 years left me yesterday.  It had started like any other day, sending emails to my agent and working on memorizing my lines for the new project. And then she had started an argument over something petty. Something a mature couple would never fight about, she sounded like a child, and it morphed into the occasional, explosive, why aren't we engaged yet argument. 

And that was that.

Even though I haven't been broken up with in forever, I feel like I'm just going through the motions, leaving for a while so she can get her stuff, and now returning, but her key is what does it. A chapter of my life is ending. 

A text from my agent pops up, but I don't have time to read it before my phone is ringing, her contact flashing on the screen. 

"Hello?" I pick up, and I realize how awful I sound, having not spoken out loud in a few hours. 

"Robert!" She practically screams in my ear. "Did you see the article?? Is it real?" 

"What article?"

"About you and Camille? She was seen with someone else?" 

"Oh, that." Will it be better if I pretend I've already seen it? 

"Yes, that. Outlets are already calling me, Robert. Is she going to give them a statement about you?" 

"No." As if I know. 

"You better make sure she doesn't. Production starts in a few days, we can't afford this right now." She hangs up on me, leaving me alone is this dismal space, with only the London street noise outside to break the silence. 

It's October now, crisp and rainy, and I can't fathom what I'll do with myself over the next few days. Production on my newest film is starting, and with it, a better chapter of my life. Or so I hope. 

What is it they say, when one door closes, another opens?