As she approaches the empty house, the automatic lights on either side of the door blink to life, casting her long shadow onto the wall. She walks up the wooden stairs she helped him paint baby blue, the color of both their shirts the day they met. Although she is begging herself not to be too upset, that this is better for both of them, a tear escapes her eye, slipping slowly down her cheek, onto the note, and pooling into a small drop that reflects the sorrow in her face. Frustrated, she tries to wipe it away but it smears across the paper, smudging the words. She sighs and unscrews the top of the lantern that contains one of the light bulbs. She kisses the note once before tossing it into the lantern. It lands directly in front of the light bulb, causing darkness to fall on half of the porch. She suddenly bursts in to uncontrollable tears, runs to her car, and drives away as quickly as she can. She doesn’t look back.

When he arrives home, all he wants to do is call her. He trudges up his blue wooden steps to his porch. That’s funny. Is one of the light bulbs dead? It shouldn’t be. He just replaced them, almost a year after they had both died, a couple of days ago after she had fallen down the stairs. He unscrews the lantern, but before he can take the light bulb out, his hand grabs something else. He finds the note which has been cleverly folded into and origami orange. He smiles, remembering the time he had tried to teach her the art of paper folding. They sat in his living room for at least eight hours while he taught her origami. Or, tried to teach her. She couldn’t even make the simplest of shapes. Eventually she crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it to the ground. “I can’t do it!” she complained. He leaned in closer so that his breath tickled her neck and said, “What are you talking about? That’s a beautiful orange!” She giggled once before they both into hysterical laughter. When they were forced to stop laughing because of aching sides and lack of breath, they both got the hiccups. Finally, he calmed down enough to suggest they order Chinese food for dinner. She only nodded because she still had a very severe case of hiccups. He led her to the kitchen and poured her a glass of water. He handed it to her and went to the freezer for ice cubes. They watched them fall as he dropped them, one by one, into the glass. She looked at him and giggled. “What?” he asked. She could only shrug because she still had hiccups. She rested the glass on the counter by the sink, put her hands on his shoulders and rested her head against his chest. She hiccupped once and then he bent down and kissed her. They silently agreed to stay like that forever. But the ring of the doorbell announcing the arrival of dinner soon interrupted their first kiss.

He reads the note and realizes it was also their last.