Once Was Love (3 Word Wednesday)

Once there was love…

We sat across a large conference room table, adamant that this will be the last meeting, that all will be resolved at this given moment in time. His head had spun around like Linda Blair in the Exorcist as the mediator entered the room. I was waiting for him to throw up pea soup as the briefcases emptied and hourly rates started calculating.
Its always peculiar that relationships end like this, when they start so heady and full of unicorns, glitter and sunshine. Ours started the same way, young love across a college campus. It started in the autumn, just as the leaves started to turn. We huddled together in the commons, drunk on spiked cider, enjoying the crisp New England air, talking philosophy amongst friends.
I thought he was the smartest man I had ever met. Charismatic, charming, I assumed this is what women found sexy about Che Gueverra. He had his adoring throng, the socialistic groupies who hung on his every word, whether or not they were fabricated. He was the center of attention.
The years were not as kind to him, as reality closed in. Tenure seemed to allude him, as we became academic gypsies. Teaching jobs became fewer and further between, as the empty bottles and promises began to build up. Tension increased, little spats blew up into knock down, drag out Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf epic battles.
After that, came the silence. Disinterest. We couldn’t even share the same table at that point. I took my meals at the Shaker table bought on an antiquing jaunt to Vermont in happier times. Its simplicity matched my sensibility. Plain, and open bare for the world to see. He ate in silence in his study, behind closed doors.
Now, we were across the conference table from each other, staring like strangers. I tried to find a flicker of recognition in his face, and found none. The past him was like a ghost, a fragmented memory of a happier time, in a happier place, on an autumn day. The leaves were brilliant hues of copper, red and gold. A cool wind flitted around, stirring the piles around campus into colorful tornadoes. Our relationship had cooled like the weather on that fall day, where once there was love.