A world where romance hasn’t died.

She stared down at her hands. Thoughts tumbled into her mind, with no hesitation and without permission. She couldn’t shake the rage that filled her as she looked at the space around her. Her home was a mess. Things not put away, an over filled bin, crumbs over the kitchen and an air of neglect filling the room. Her partner was not home. This meant she could vent her frustration with a serious of sounds that she wasn’t even sure she could describe.

Why must she be the only one that bears the responsibility on her back? This wasn’t the real reason she was frustrated though. She knew that she was not innocent to leaving a mess behind. Stopping to clear the mess and instead letting herself fall onto a nearby couch. It wasn’t long before sobs began to rack through her body. The frustration finally getting the better of her, and bubbling to the surface. She cried for a false perception of a relationship. Watching her parents marriage fail, she had created a perception of what a relationship should look like; sharing of responsibilities, compassion, love and romance. Her relationship was near close to this, only missing two components. Compassion was an easily forgotten concept in a relationship, stopping and considering another is something that herself and her partner had fallen short of multiple times. The frustration and tears were targeted at the false perceptions of love that showered her as she grew up. The movies that had sold her a lie and the books that had swept her off her feet.

Romance.

Pure and simple, a romantic story filled to the brim with cringe worthy love. She had spent many Saturday’s curled up in bed devouring books that contained nothing but sickly love and romantic gestures to last a lifetime. Knights being chivalrous to fair maidens, men waiting outside a woman’s window, hidden moments in time that did nothing but made her swoon. This passion that she had spent her time observing and studying, was lacking in modern society. She never admitted that she was a hopeless romantic, not to herself or her partner. He was many things, including her best friend, he was good for her, and he loved her.

But she still felt it. Craved it. Needed it. The want to be swept up in a whirlwind of love and romance. To feel as one of her heroines did, special and cherished. She looked down at her hands once more and felt silly for thinking such things. She had a good strong man. They could laugh together and conquer the world together. Such thoughts could have been indulged in a different time. Such romantic thoughts could be dreamt of during another era.

This world and this time, meant another form of a relationship. One where it no longer had time for things such as romantic gestures. Love notes, romantic picnics and beautiful moments were to be reserved for her movies, books and imagination.

She looked around her home, her eyes catching on a photo of them both laughing. She was lucky to have found him. Beginning to clean the home around her, she allowed herself a fantasy; just one. The fantasy caught her up and let her slip away into another world as she cleaned.  A world where romance hadn’t died, and she was currently being swept into a  flurry of sweet love..