her favorite sweater is a soft blush, well worn, the slight pulls visible on the cuff no matter how gentle she's ever been when washing it. there isn't anything particularly fashionable about it, not really. it's plain and knit, not even by anyone she knows. it wasn't a gift and she can't remember wearing it during any stand out moments in her life that it should hold some kind of sentimental value. really, it's just a sweater.

a sweater she wore at adam's apartment whenever she got cold. because he loved to turn the air conditioning on full blast even in the winter, and despite being a native to the northeast and claiming to miss the snow, she was always freezing these days, even in texas.

she doesn't even think about it at home until she's not feeling well one day and she's looking for the familiar comfort. but the second she thinks about it, she pulls up short.

it isn't lost really, because she knows exactly where it is. or at least where it should be. stuffed in the top drawer of adam's bureau, mixed with his tshirts and casual wear, because she never had a drawer of her own.

(maybe she should have been less surprised
at their sudden ending, when she thought about
the fact that she spent most of her time there
and still didn't have her own drawer.)

despite thinking she had worked through all the phases of mourning, a fresh wave washes over her swift and sure, threatening to pull her under as the water pools in her eyes again. she did the moments of anger, ripping a picture of the two of them, throwing all his things in a box, texting him with blame. she'd cried for days in grief. she'd relented to her friends advice and joined the strange world of tinder, putting herself back out there. inevitably she'd even drunkenly gone back to him, fallen into familiar routines, allowing herself to be lost in the idea that they could work things out, that they could be friends, that maybe his hands and mouth and warmth were enough without his heart and all she'd done was hate herself in the morning.

(it's was as foolish to think any of
that was enough as it is to think she
could get over him in a month.)

so it's not lost, but it might as well be. because adam is, at least to her.