As much as you try to forget it sometimes, it's always there. When it's one of those days when everything is a reminder, you sleep early so as to block out the visions of your loss. Yet, your dreams are filled with her smile, her voice, her presence. You realize it in deep sleep and become torn between fighting to wake, or staying because you know in the harsh arms of reality, she isn't running her fingers through your hair. And she's not going to say that she loves you. You aren't even going to hear her voice. Because she's gone. You're but a distant unvisited memory to her, ignored and forgotten.

And that's when you do wake, shivering cold despite the burning room; alone despite still feeling her pressed against you. Then the confusion sets in and you wonder how you went from that perfect day after Christmas, feeling that you were finally back where you belong, to this. Back to the longing.

But you know why, even if you don't want to think about it. You know that you were rejected by the only person you've ever loved. Rejected for meaningless passion. Rejected in favor of someone who doesn't deserve. For someone who has gone their own way with many while you sat at home thinking of only one person. And then when they lift their finger, they unjustly get what you had missed all this time. And it's you who are left out to fade away, alone. You were rejected and she didn't even miss a step.

And as much as you love the person, you wish they could feel it, just for a moment. Feel the horrid anguish that such rejection entails. Yet only for that moment. Any longer and it begins to work at your sanity, as has become clear to you long ago. And you do not wish them to feel the unbearable fear of not knowing where to step next in the empty path of life. God, how you miss the days when your steps were clear. Like you to her, it is but a distant memory. A memory that is fading fast.