Prologue: "The End of An Era, But The Start of a Story"

The papers lay there, lifeless on the shiny wooden desk in between them.

Neither of them touched them.

The air was tense; as if all positivity deliberately avoided the room, and all that was left was a frigid, gloomy atmosphere.

“Are you sure about this?” Celeste sighed in disbelief - faced with the firm stack of papers in front of her, while reminiscing about the times they had experienced together in the past.

How did we even get to this point? Celeste pondered tentatively waiting for an answer.

“Stop trying to make me change my mind, you know we would both be better off without each other." Lucien uttered in a steady tone, avoiding Celeste’s gaze.

The amount of confidence in Lucien’s voice seemed to kill Celeste’s last hope.

Celeste’s gaze was not one of anger, nor regret, rather one of nostalgia, repeating their entire marriage multiple times over in her head, trying to figure out what went wrong, and thinking back to the wonderful moments they had together early on.

Seemingly it was a gaze Lucien avoided to not stir up emotion within himself.

Divorce after only 2 years? At 25 years old? She thought, observing as he picked up the fountain pen off the table and dipped it into the ink.

She began to shake uncontrollably as Lucien started signing the papers, which they vowed would never see the light of day. A promise both of them strived to keep but couldn’t fulfill in the end.

“Could we at the very least have a reasonable conversation about this.” Lucien said in a serious tone as he turned to her, trying to calm her down.

“We haven’t been able to talk about this for more than ten minutes without either of us breaking down.” he continued.

Trying to wipe her tears and control her shivering, Celeste tries to utter an approval but is unable due to the forceful emotions seemingly overpowering her body, the complete opposite of Lucien’s calm and composed attitude.

After putting the pen down, Lucien’s mind immediately started racing with doubtful thoughts.

Was letting go of this really the right option? Can we save this? He reasoned, whilst trying to stabilize his shaking knee and prevent the incoming flow of tears that was starting to form around the bottom of his eyes.

“Celeste, I’m sorry” he whispered to himself, just loud enough for her to hear, as he placed his gritty hands tightly on the arms of the chair, assuming the position to get up.

“Lucien, please!” Celeste pleaded as she aggressively leaned her upper body towards him, trying to catch his attention while remaining seated.

Hiding his tears, Lucien released his grip from the arms of the chair and decided to take a seat.

She’s worth at least a solid conversation. He understood, trying to discern the problems they faced together, while avoiding an emotional confrontation.

As Lucien tried to repeat his lazy excuse for an apology to Celeste, she cut him off with a deep breath, before his rushed words could deepen the abyss she was in.

As Celeste opened her mouth, a completely different persona came out this time, as if her breathing technique seemingly released all the built up tension within her.

“Lucien, where did we go wrong?” she inquired, taking Lucien by surprise completely.

He had never thought she would outright ask it like that.

Trying to answer her, he stumbled over his words as if he was preoccupied trying to skim through all the memories they had together, to find the missing link to their relationship.

“I- I guess we never understood each other Celeste.” he managed to get out after racking his brain.

A cold sensation filled Celeste’s body again, as if all the courage she had built up to have a mature conversation suddenly dissipated.

Suddenly a sense of rage filled her, prompted with this cold attitude and response from Lucien, she couldn’t hold it in any longer

“Lucien, you don’t even care enough to be able to pinpoint a real problem?!” she proclaimed as she rose from her chair, knocking it backwards, and sending it clattering onto the hard marble floor.

The silence following this was deafening.

“Do you have any idea how hard I fought to save what we had?” she continued, “Maybe if you actually cared about us once, instead of trying to act stoic.”

Her voice echoed throughout the apartment complex.

A dog could faintly be heard barking from downstairs, as if awoken by the yelling.

“Are you just going to sit there as if you don’t care?” she said in a laughing tone.

The whole situation felt so frittered, that all the hope she once had, was completely absent after his silence.

As she tried to continue her speech, he interrupted her, with a tone so serious it felt intimidating.

“Celeste, all you have done is try to control my life, and our relationship” he declared, scaring her back to her seat that was on the floor, desperately trying to put it back upright and sit down.

Lucien was never a man of violence, especially not abuse, but this tone made even Celeste fear for her safety.

He got up out of his chair as he dusted off his suit pants, and directed his gaze towards her.

Celeste tried to utter something directed towards Lucien but wasn’t able to get any sound out, as if Lucien’s gaze paralyzed her.

“You expect me to care, and put in effort, when all you have done is micromanage me?” he continued, “You don’t leave a smidge of space for my effort if u control every detail of our lives!”.

As silence started to fill the room again, Celeste interrupted it by standing up and getting in Lucien’s face.

Her eyes filled with dismay as she desperately tried to look in Lucien’s eyes, and find the lover that she once found within those eyes.

Instead all she saw was an eternal abyss, a darkness with no end.

As she wiped her tears from her face again, she raised her shaking arm up towards her head, with her palm facing Lucien.

And as she closed her eyes, she swung at his cheek with full force, and a loud slap filled the room, and seemingly overpowered every other sense in the body.

Suddenly everything went black, and when she opened her eyes, a weird yet familiar scene stood in front of her.

A school blackboard was staring back at her, next to a teenage girl she recognized.

“Is that you, Adelaide?” Celeste rubbed her eyes while trying to discern who she was looking at.

Where am I? Am I dreaming? Celeste wondered.

Adelaide laughed, “Yes you dummy!” “We’ve only been friends for five years!”, she joked.

Did I just dream the last seven and a half years? Or could it be that I travelled back in time? Celeste asked herself.

She instinctively checked behind her in the classroom to see if Lucien was in class.

A warm sensation filled her heart as she immediately recognized Lucien’s younger face, the face she fell in love with.

As she rushes out of her seat, she yells out “Lucien!”.

A look of confusion started to appear on the face in front of her, wondering why a voice he didn’t recognize called out to him.

She ran towards him. “Lucien, did you have the same dream, or did that really happen?”.

Lucien stared at her, trying to understand what she was saying.

Who is this chick? How does she know my name on the first day?

After thinking it through, Lucien decided to ask in order to clear up this confusion, “Excuse me but, do I know you?”.

A look of terror immediately filled Celeste’s face as she tried to articulate her thoughts, “Y-Yes, Lucien.. I-I.. It’s me, Celeste!".