remembering

When I get to K's I stand outside her door and really try to stop crying. I smear my fingertips under my eyes and then wipe my hands down my jeans leaving smudges of black make-up across my thighs.
I give up and knock on the door. She could barely understand me on the phone, but she did, just, and she will know what sort of state I'm in.
When the door opens I suddenly wish it was another night. That this was just a normal Monday evening and I was popping round for us to watch American sit coms and eat skittles. The thought is brief but so strong I have a heart wrenching urge to run back to the our flat and take it all back, to swallow every broken word and plead with him to just let life go back to the way it was. When it all felt so simple, so easy and so expected.
When K sees me she tries to smile and tells me to come on in and I get the feeling that she might be wishing the same thought as me. We walk through her living room and I keep my eyes on the floor. I don't look or speak to her parents but I'm guessing K has told them because they don't speak or look at me either.
I suddenly start to dread reaching K's room. I know the time for talking is so close and yet I feel like it's the last thing I can do.
It takes a while. K is patient. She hugs and asks questions and doesn't seem to mind that she's rarely getting answers. She puts tissues on the bed and makes coffee.
Eventually I start to speak, small words uttered into my lukewarm black coffee.
'When I woke up this morning I knew. I just knew. I remember when I woke up and I didn't want to turn over and look at him, couldn't bear to see his face because somewhere inside me I knew that soon nothing would ever be the same again. I walked our of our bedroom with my head turned away from his side.
All through my day at work my stomach was twisted with fear and dread. Fear of what I was concieving in my mind, fear of it becoming a reality, fear of the unknown and of thinking things that I never thought I would think. And that dread, that horrible sickly dread rooted right down in the very core of me, never letting me forget that those thoughts I was thinking would become real very soon.
My crying increased throughout the day. My boss kept sending me outside to get 'fresh air' or 'to have a walk' or 'clear your head'. Nothing helped, because nothing was normal and everything was breaking.
In the morning the cracks were spreading, but I could almost still pretend that I was only crying over the thought of my relationship ending. I kept saying over and over to myself like a mantra it will be ok. You'll forget this and everything will go back to normal.
Normal.
The word used to describe what my life had entailed for the past six years. Normal was him. But now I wasn't sure if normal was enough, wasn't sure if normal was working anymore. And no matter how much I tried to push that thought out of my head it kept coming back. I was infected by it.
And thats when I stopped crying with worry for my relationship, and started breaking because I knew it was ending, and it was me who was going to have to end it.'
I look at K then.
'The only thing that was going round and round and tormenting me was the fact that I was knowingly going to go home and smash our world  and us apart.'
I can't speak anymore for a while, so K gently asks what made up my mind. She knew things hadn't been right for a while, but she was shocked that I'd pulled the plug tonight.
I sigh and my breath rattles from my lungs. I swallow hard and look at her.
'I just finally realised we weren't making eachother happy anymore. I wanted us to work so so badly. I gave it everything, I really did.'
'I know you did.' K strokes my arm.
I gulp in air. 'And I almost wish that there had been some huge dramatic reason and then maybe I wouldn't feel so empty right now. But there wasn't. It was just a horrible moment where two people find out their world is breaking.
And when I ran down our stairs to the sound of his crying and when I slammed the door and drove away it slammed into me so hard I thought I was drowning. I'd done it. We we broken.'