Some people, she thought, glow brighter than others. Something within them is exceptionally bright and gifts them with a beauty much more significant than any set of conventionally beautiful features could ever give them. Not that Tina was anything but breathtaking.  

She sighed. 

 “I’ll miss you when I wake up.”

She stared at the book between her fingers. She hopelessly tried to concentrate on the page she had been reading for nearly 20 minutes, trying to shake away the ghosts of memories that threatened to come lurking back. Something in the first sentence had stirred memories she had tried for a long time to forget. It was inevitable, in a way, since it was thanks to Tina that she had developed such a reading habit. At some point in their relationship, they started to read to each other; it was one of their favorite activities. So, it was thanks to her that she adopted the habit of carrying a book with her when she went out. 

Sometimes she wished things had been different. Sometimes, she wished for a different reality, in which she worked on herself first before meeting Tina—a universe where she would have been braver, less prone to get angry, and more tender. If things had gone differently, she would be there now, holding her hand. Maybe, if things had gone differently, Tina would still be living with her instead of with him. Maybe, maybe, maybe….

***

Tina

Tina Kennard hated Mondays. Mondays had never brought her any semblance of contentment. Mondays meant returning to the routine. They represented thousand-and-one meetings with men who had no respect for a woman in the film industry. They meant lonely breakfasts and early mornings half asleep, bumping into everything. It meant endless nights where the effort to stifle tears left her exhausted enough to finally sleep. But mostly, it meant being stuck back in the same space as Henry day after day for an eternal week. It meant another week of thinking about her and the what-ifs. 

A movement at her side distracted her from her thoughts. Anxiety began to bubble deep in her stomach as she noticed the hand circling her waist above the sheets. She knew she was being unreasonable; she had supposedly chosen him because she loved him…and it was true, she did love him, but was that enough? Sometimes she felt like she was wasting her life trying to justify to herself the decisions she had made.