Well, I got this workshopped today, and my class had more than a few suggestions on how to improve it (thank god). Thanks for your help, guys, telling me that five and six were a little off, because I knew what to specify when they started mutilating it. I'm proud to say it's almost a page longer now. Tell me what you think!

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The days(3) are often(1) longest(6) after(5) the sun(4) sets(2).

1. Oftentimes we’d set out early in the morning, planning for a day of window-shopping or gentle conversation between lovers in a street side café. He would order a medium mocha latte, no whipped cream, thank you, and I would settle for decaf tea, and we’d buy a croissant to share, but those more often than not sat ignored between us on the wrought iron table. Clasping hands between us, we’d ignore the whispers and stares that could accompany going out together in public and talk jovially of this or that. He would nudge my foot with his and grin goofily when I blushed, even though all around us there were tuts and tsks and parents tugging their children away, away to safety and normality, and when the owner would politely ask us to leave for the umpteenth time that week, we would stop beneath an enormous maple tree that still shaded the bench on which two men shared their first kiss almost four years before.

2. Settling down on that very bench, the one on which we sat almost four years before, where he would shuffle a few inches closer to me every few minutes but never catch my eye, all the while a remarkable shade of pink, he took my hand again and intertwined our fingers, bringing them to rest on his knee. Most of the time we were content with silence, watching the ducks in the pond before us quack merrily and circle on the surface, looking for something yummy, whatever it is ducks eat. I stared at the leaves on the ground foretelling colder weather, at the patterned concrete beneath our tennis shoes, at the dark stubble showing on his jaw, the way his jacket was halfway unzipped and thinking that he might come down with something if it stayed like that. I was going to reach out to zip it up, but as soon as my fingers twitched, he tightened his hold on them. It seemed for a moment he might have opened his mouth to say something, but then he just smiled, and that, even then, spoke volumes between us. I assumed it always would.

3. The days grew shorter even as we sat in silence, in harmony, he with a slight smile and I with a grin as we watched the sun go down over the duck pond at our feet, the water foul nestled into their reedy homes in preparation for the night. There were ducklings that day, little balls of fluffy down, peeping after their mothers. It would be cold soon, but I waited for him to move uncomfortably before I took a breath to suggest we leave. Almost like he read my mind, he looked at me with agreement that seemed to be tinged with an ulterior motive, so I grinned even wider and allowed him to draw me up and into his arms. The air grew colder around us, the days ever shorter, but I knew we had nothing to worry about.

4. The sun was nothing but an orange film on wispy clouds by the time we reached the flat we shared, laughing and panting and clutching our sides, his hair disheveled and strewn about his face. He had never looked so happy, I realized, eyes twinkling, slitted, tearful with mirth and frosty air, and he looked so full of emotions he could burst from the sheer volume of them, just as the sun was exploding into blues and purples behind us. He looked as though our run from the park had put him back ten years, free from the worries of a computer programmer whose job is less than stable, those of a man whose mother was on her deathbed, those of a still-recovering alcoholic – he looked like he did when we were in high school together, fumbling kids who had no idea what was going on half the time, pretending the other didn’t notice our surreptitious glances to one another in the lunch room and almost leaping across the chemistry room in order to be lab partners, to be close to one another, even only for the fifty minutes of a class. He looked young again.

5. After we took dinner in near silence, the only communication between us a soft smile or two, he kissed my cheek, and I knew he was going to bed. There was still some work to be done in the kitchen, and though I was loathe to begin it – dirty dishes and dead flies on the flypaper and linoleum curling up from the floor, the trash beginning to smell a bit rank – such was the price of domesticity. If it would ensure the delay of his departure, because at that time I was sure everybody I loved would leave me, then I would gladly do anything for that man. By the time I was finished in the kitchen, dishes drying in the dish-drainer and clean flypaper hung, he had already taken his shower and fallen asleep, a light snore interrupting the tranquility of our bedroom on occasion. Only bothering to shed my shirt and shoes, I crawled beneath the covers beside him and quickly followed his suit.

6. The longest day of my life was the day after the night he left, that very night of flypaper and dirty dishes. He left a note on withered paper in ink of bright red, his comfortable scrawl telling me that he felt claustrophobic; a few days later, the news ran a story about a man murdered in the park at the foot of the duck pond, the man that was him. I cried for a week, I think, but I don’t remember much of what happened back then anymore. Nowadays I wander the flat, my fingertips touching knickknacks and photographs, trailing fingers on the peeling wallpaper and flattening palms on the worn dinner table. I hardly sleep anymore, rarely more than two hours and always less than three, and the sheets no longer smell of him. When I tire of lying in bed and waiting for sleep, the bed we shared for two and a half years, I hoist myself to my feet and meander around, followed by his memory, my dusty fingers lingering on his photographed lips.