It was as though the world had simply ceased to exist, and all she could hear was the labored pounding of her own heart in her chest. She saw her hands folded in front of her, and for the first time noticed a small freckle between her index and middle finger. Had it always been there? She wasn’t sure. How strange her fingers looked tonight. Were these even her hands? She felt so distant, so removed from it all. These couldn’t be her hands.

And then it returned. The reason she was sitting here, hands folded, heart beating. She saw him shift nervously across from her, noticed his hands. Strong, tanned, perfectly manicured. She loved those hands. How they held hers, how they caressed her cheek, wiped away her tears. Now her hands seemed foreign, her cheek cold, and her tears fell to the table, landing with a splash. She shifted her head; they landed on her hands. Her foreign, strange hands.