There’s nothing left in her hands,

And she wanted to hold on firmly, but the cracks on her palms weren’t as rough as they once were. She thought that the cracks were supposed to last forever, that the reason people used them to predict futures or tell age was because they were lines that couldn’t be reversed. But for all that she believed, he was slipping from her grip as though she were smooth as stone; no matter how much she tried or which angle she approached it from his hand just wouldn’t stay in hers. 

She supposed that those cracks must’ve acted something like glue, something that embedded the proof of his own life into her grip so they could share an understanding of experience that kept them hand in hand. Maybe it was that cream he’d brought for her last Christmas. Where was it from again? Some limited-edition tube of crushed flowers and liquid vanilla that now lived on the top of their dresser. The brand was still covered by the sale price that had been taped over it. She’d left it on, left it facing him so that he might realise and take it off. He hadn’t, it was still there. Not as clear as it once was, though – the stark red had faded into a weak swimming pink and the numbers once printed in bold

had lost half their size.

She’d used it religiously, of course, had made it a part of her daily routine – once in the morning, twice at night when they both went to bed. It took extra time at night; she would bring it over from the dresser and sit on the edge of her bed, rubbing it in until thee were no streaks left, and then she used to get back up and put it back with the rest of her things, over there where it lived on his side of the room. She stopped doing that a while ago, now she just left it on her bedside table. 

And maybe it was to blame for why everything fell away from her now, for why the skin on her palms had faded into something soft and hard to grasp. It had been a tough thing to grapple with at first, but she could feel that leaving her to – that urge to do something about it.

It would turn out, soon, that everything was softening. That the things she once held dear were now too much for her new palms to carry,

Because the cracks had faded, and so, too, was everything else.