The Trajectory

Zia Benedetta clutched her pearls tightly as she walked the street opposite the cathedral. The same street she walked through daily as a girl and a young woman. 

Nothing much had changed within it. If they were any significant changes, it was most definitely the fact that it looked dirtier and much more wretched. 

As a young child, she fantasized daily about the big day she would finally leave that awful place for good. It didn't come as a surprise when she woke up one morning and walked out of a five-year relationship.

Zia's parents had died when she was a child, so when she left, there was nothing that made her feel remorseful and safe for the broken heart she left behind. If there was a single word she could use to describe her time with Hector, it was "surreal,"