Looking back on it now, I see the exact moment I fell apart.

It wasn’t when the very first tears came because she told me I would never be more to her than what I already was. It wasn’t when I begged her to try to feel what I did—I didn’t get on my hands and knees, but I may as well have. It wasn’t when she left the door open behind her and I felt the very foundations of my life giving way beneath me.

The moment I fell apart was before all of that.

It was the sunshine on her hair. Light illuminating the strands as she ruffled it with her slender fingers. It was her in front of the window, backlit by the glow that made her look almost angelic. Her laugh, painted golden by the setting sun.

That was the moment.

Funny how something so common as sunshine, which we see every day for all our lives, can bring a catastrophe to life.

This one cataclysmic beam of light through the window was all it took to break down the dam of words I’d kept carefully hidden for so long. It set loose all that I’d so methodically tucked away, and I couldn’t keep my feelings from roaring out in an unstoppable torrent of hideous truth.

After she was gone, the sunshine leaked through the window and coated my skin, until I broke open and broke down into it.

Funny how something as harmless as daylight can decorate even the deepest despair into a prettier thing.