It’s the last good day of summer before autumn sets in, fresh but beautifully sunny and clear. He’s made the most of the surprising weather dressed in a thin linen shirt- white, crumpled and smelling faintly of smoke and sweat from where he pulled it out of the washing basket this morning. Unbuttoned to his chest with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows, he reaches across the wooden table to give Eva her present. His long brown hair is caught up high in a top-knot, ends splayed and messy. Chisel-jawed and poster-boy handsome, he stopped many a girl’s heart during his days at art school. Smooth and baby-faced through the majority of his twenties, his chin is finally darkened with bristled hairs. Now though, he’s noticed that fine lines are starting to appear around his eyes, which today are heavy-lidded and puffy, ringed with dark circles, the result of a string of late nights and parties.
As he stares across the table at his girlfriend; at her pale porcelain skin, wide eyes and celebrating her twentieth birthday- he begins to feel old and tired. A slight frown furrows his brow as he takes a sip of his ale, ice cold and frothy, and sets the tankard back down on the table before him. Staring into the amber liquid he wonders how best to break up with Eva, without adding another broken heart to the string of them scattered behind him in his wake. Sighing, he lifts his head up, looks across the table, and clears his throat.
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