Unraveled...

It was the music that should have tipped her off.

"Just an old-fashioned love song, one I'm sure they wrote for you and me" she looked around to see who was playing their radio and the music faded away. How odd. She tried to remember the rest of the song, how did it go again? She should know it. She used to know it. They had danced to it at that street fair when they first started dating. It was just so goofy and fun and it became one of their songs. Why couldn't she think of how it went anymore? She tried to hum the part she had just heard and it was gone now as well.

A few weeks later she was looking through pictures from Jamie's going away party. She had been traveling for work and hadn't been able to make it. Clicking through the album smiling at seeing all of her friends having a great time and wishing Jamie well for his next adventure she was surprised to see a picture of her ex. There he was, one arm around Jamie and one arm around a woman she had never seen before. He hadn't even liked Jamie when they first started dating. Said he was pretentious. Now here he was cozied up to him at a party? She read the comments, they were going camping together before he left? What? As she started to click through more pictures she realized that she wasn't able to pull the names of the people that were there without looking at the tags on the picture. Eventually she stopped looking when she realized she didn't know anyone.

That weekend she went for a hike to clear her head. She had been feeling more and more foggy lately. Some time outdoors would help she was sure of it. She crested the hill and saw her spot. There was a small clearing at the top of the hill, she had found it when she was a kid. Used to hike up here with her dad for picnics. She had only brought two other people here ever. It was her place. As she sat down to contemplate her place in the world something shiny caught her eye. It was an earring. She picked it up and something about it was familiar. A picture flashed in her mind and then faded. A woman she didn't know with people she thought she should know but couldn't place. She put the earring back down. Maybe who ever lost it would come looking for it again. She got up to hike back to her car thinking, this was a nice spot. I should try and remember it and come back sometime.

Out with friends for drinks when her girlfriend handed her a phone showing an open Facebook page. A picture of her ex out to dinner with the woman from the picture. "Isn't that your cousin's place?" She looked at the picture, "It is. Great food." then she read the caption, "Good for the body, good for the soul." That's when she felt the tug. Really paid attention. "I need to go."

Driving home she tried to remember the song, the party, the view, the restaurant, how many times he had told her that she was good for his soul. The memories had to be there somewhere. There was a song. She knew there was a song, what was it? The people in the pictures, they were friends, right? Who were they? This couldn't really be happening right? He wouldn't be doing this. Couldn't be.

She hit the door to the house and started running upstairs. "Well I've been afraid of changing cause I built my life around you..." bursting in to the attic she saw the tapestry hanging where she had stored it. Or at least she saw what was left of it. Threads had been pulled out. So many that it was unraveling.  She followed a loose thread, a memory of a moment, walked along with it remembering, and then it wasn't hers anymore. It changed. He was still there but he had changed the color of the thread. Moving her out and someone else in. Weaving a new tapestry using her threads.

She sat back and looked at the ruins of her once beautiful tapestry. How many pieces could he take before she ceased to exist? Could he really just weave her out of her own memories? She looked around her attic once more at the things she had up there. The tapestry that she had made with her father. The colorful one with the glitter string she and her mother had made together. The first one she had tried to weave with her high school boyfriend. If it was on Etsy they would call that one artisanal. But it really was a hot mess. She looked at how they were all joined. The threads they had in common, the ones that belonged only in one piece.

"Time makes you bolder, even children get older..."

The music got louder.

She picked up a pair of scissors and cut the loose threads.