Sixteen years ago, it was all different. Of course it was; that’s a lot of time for things to change. But when I was with Rosa - I can still remember how it felt. How I dreaded coming home from work because she was there. How I worried about the weekends because it meant we would have to spend more time together. How I felt so utterly sad inside when I looked at her because I used to love to see her face and now I couldn’t stand it. Nothing had changed; she was the same woman she had always been. She loved me and she didn’t know that I no longer loved her. Until I left, without any notice. She deserved more … I knew that then and I know it even more now.

I saw her on the news this morning, dead in a crash on the freeway. She looked the same, but somehow sadder with time. I wondered how much of that had to do with me, with my choices. And, even though I wanted to leave so badly sixteen years ago, I wondered if she would still be dead if I had chosen to stay. Would I have been in that car? Or would we be somewhere else entirely, a different state, a different world? Who would we have been if I stayed?