I saw it fall from its wooden throne in the center of the room. I saw the moment it impacted, splintering outward into a thousand gleaming ripples across the bare floor. In the moment before it shattered, I realized it had been doomed to die. The table it was perched on was off balance and vulnerable like a stray missing a leg. It must have finally given up. I let it fall. 

You gave me the vase in September before you moved to Chicago. You said you thrifted it for seven dollars. It was large enough to hold several flowers, and engraved inside was a heart with a pair of initials, neither of which were ours. The color was a dusty blue, reminiscent of a cold, misty beach at dusk. I remember trying to wipe it down with the hem of my shirt, thinking it was dirty, but you laughed and told me it was just that shade of blue. I probably laughed too, but nothing was funny since you were leaving the next morning. 

That night, the shrouded sky held no stars. Instead, droplets quietly tapped against the windows as the desperate smell of rain permeated our home. I made us each a cup of instant ramen and we sat down to watch TV. In reality, you watched the TV while I watched you, reading the whites of your eyes for something that wasn’t there before. Something that would reveal that you wanted to stay. Since you moved in a year ago, I sought to understand you. Your ambitions. Your unique inflections. How your hands are always cold. The way you bring your old Sony point-and-shoot camera everywhere, regardless of how bland the scenery is. You had unknowingly swept me under your currents and I welcomed the water into my lungs.

In that moment, I felt your crippling presence next to me. I vividly recalled when you’d teach me to bake on the weekends and how we would always share whatever we created. Even after cleaning the whole kitchen, flour would remain stuck in the cracks of the counter and floor for days. I remembered how you were awful at guitar when you first moved in. I could hear you practicing through the walls at night and I would listen to you play before falling asleep. While overthinking, my gaze drifted to the vase, which I had set on the coffee table. I could see your reflection shining in the artificial glow of the television. Accepting that you wouldn’t change your mind, I went to bed defeated. 

At 10 AM, you were standing by the door with your packed belongings. We said goodbye and you drove off. It was much less dramatic than I had hoped, but something changed when I watched your car turn the corner. The sunlight falling through my windows was dimmer. My lungs no longer felt full when I sucked air into them like they were leaving room for you to return. My skull was clouded with fog and I floated between days as an observer, letting the present tense cut through me as I helplessly clung to the past. I complained about how I might never recover from your absence; but despite my pessimism, time’s arrow marched on indifferently and the seasons swept over me. 

By December, I had grown acquainted with your vase. I relocated it to its pedestal in the living room as if it were the centerpiece of my home. Although the vase brought some depth to the bleak apartment, its presence haunted me, reflecting your absence in the same manner it reflected light. In the morning, rays of sunlight refracted onto the walls as brilliant spiral ribbons of you. During the evening, the vase’s shell glared in the cruel light of the television, convicting me of unspoken words. Yet every day, I checked to find it in its typical spot. It gave my life structure, a consistently present anchor amid an otherwise volatile day. I never understood how much I relied on it until I saw its parts viscerally sprawled across the floor. 

Its death felt personal like part of me broke with it and lay writhing among the shards. I hopelessly gathered its fragments and swept the remaining particles into a dustpan. Looking down at the pieces in my hands, the vase had ceased to be anything more than baked earth. Even the painted surface somehow seemed duller, now resembling a muddy green that shone with much less glory than its final swan dive. I buried its ceramic bones in the yard the next day, and layer by layer, grass grew over it until it disappeared entirely. 

I was buying eggs when I thought of you again. I’m not sure what reminded me of you — maybe it was the empty drone of the bustling store or a familiar scent. It was a scalding August weekend and, as in previous weeks, I spent the morning not thinking about you. I poured an iced coffee into your favorite cup and unintentionally sat in your spot on the couch before setting off to accomplish my daily tasks. I didn’t catch it at the time, but everything seemed better. The summer heat had cauterized the wake of your absence, leaving only faint glimmers of you that sometimes peaked through the foliage when struck by the afternoon sun. By then, my chest had finally learned to stop anticipating your return. Yet, bathed in the fluorescent glow of the grocery store refrigerators, I froze.

Forever. As each season passed, it became clear that you would be a part of me forever — but nothing is forever. My memory of you had faded, painted over by a vague sense of yearning that died along with your dusty blue vase. In another month, it won’t hurt anymore to hear your name. In a year, I will let myself forget your favorite songs and how you liked your coffee made. In two, maybe I’ll call you. I might be trapped in your harbor forever, but I will not sink. I will live from breath to breath until I find the strength to swim.