The year was 1984. A chilly December wind russled the braches on the empty trees and swept the leaves down a small street two blocks north of 4th and South Streets in Philadelphia. Two houses down, in an apartment on the second floor, someone was writting.

"Dear Simon,
The last few weeks have been very hard for me. For us, really. I feel conflicted in the worst way. I know it's hard to beleive, especially after reading this, but I love you dearly. I really do and you have to beleive that. But I feel like you're holding me down. Everything I do has to be approved and stamped by you and I can't operate with such limited freedom. Freedom from the one that I love. A concept I never thought I'd have to deal with.
I have so many emotions I want to convey and yet, my inability to express them in a way that feels correct to me prevents me from doing so. Moving here, with you, was a bad decision on my part. We needed more time to find eachother - to find ourselves, really. I don't think we can go back to what we had before I moved here. I know you want to... even I want to. With all my heart I wish it were possible but there is a speck of me, as there is of you, that tells me that we will only make things worse. Impossible in the long run, even. And so, tomorrow you'll wake up and read my note and stand in shock. A little part of you will understand right away. That part of you understands now, as I write, why I don't just return to bed and try my hardest to be happy. I am not for here and here is not for me. Listen to the sliver of understanding self that I know exists in you because I will not return tomorrow or the next day. Will I ever return? I wish I can but I won't know until I'm far from here and weeks or months have passed. Try your hardest to understand...

Love,
Helen"

Attached to the bottom of the note was a quote which Helen picked from her favorite book, a collection of Shakespeare Plays and Sonnets - from Romeo and Juliet. To heavy to carry with her, she would have to leave the book there. It meant so much to her, it was almost as painful to leave it as it was to leave Simon. However, both were necessary.

"Jul: Three words, dear Romeo, and good night, indeed. If thy bent of love be honuorable, thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow, by one that I'll procure to come to thee, where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite; and all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, and follow thee my lord throughout the world."

She finished off the note, wiped her tears from the page and placed it on the table where he'd see it in the morning. As for her book, she lay a single red flower inside of it, closed it and placed it gently on the bottom shelf. The book was so heavy you hardly noticed the small crease the flower made in it's thousand-some pages of intricate text. A few minutes later, she quietly slipped her coat over her arms and took with her a single bag in to the night. Simon awoke early the next morning to find her absent from bed and when he stepped outside the bedroom to find her note, he found it hard to beleive. After some time of wandering the small apartment in a lovesick stupor, he added things together in his head. The things she had taken, the way she spoke in her letter, even the subtle hints she had been giving for weeks that he took no notice of until now. It was only then that he accepted what had happened as the truth.
For a few weeks after, he had a hard time getting back to a normal life. Routine wasn't routine like he remembered it. He thought of things he could have done to change what he almost didn't see in himself. He thought of what would happen if she were to return one day out of the blue. After a while though, he thought less and less of where she was and what she was doing. In some ways, it was easier to wonder and hope for the best than it would have been to know and potentially see the worst. About two months later, he started cleaning things she had left behind. Trying to convince himself that she wasn't coming back was all he could do to start over. And so he took a pile of her books up the street to a man he knew with a used book store. The man offered him all of $40 for the pile but Simon refused it. As unlikely as that would seem for such a man of low income, he didn't think it right to sell what she had once owned and loved. He accepted, instead, some words of consolation from the man and tried to convince him that this was the move with which he was going to get over her. The man, entering back in to his store, simply turned and said "No, Simon. I've seen that before. You don't ever get over it." And with that he returned to his register inside. Simon stood for a long moment, taking in the echo of what the man had said and then went on his way, back to his appartment.

Almost 20 years later, a man from Lafayette Hill who had recieved the book as a gift from a friend years earlier, happened to open one night to that page. The one that Helen had placed the flower in. He wondered to himself "Did I put this here? No, I couldn't have... I wonder where it came from?" And thus, his night continued.

Or... something like that.

Happy December 10th.