the sunset was beautiful

Clouds peppered the darkening sky and hid the few visible stars. Purple and orange streaks of paint on a gradient. To the east the sun was already gone and darkness reigned, to the west the sun still had some vigor left. But here, the sun's fatal wound would once again sink it into the grave. It's blood had tinted everything a pale red, but the orange dying light changed everything to a more mellow salmon. It was a glorious death. The death of a hero who had fough valiently ever since his first strike at 6 to his unfortunate retreat now. He dazzled young couples on the shore everywhere and left a solemn silence behind him as the last remaining shreds of light were slowly overtaken by the icy grip of night.

she was stern

Her face was carved of stone. Immovable frowning, she barely managed to spit, "1...2..."
So sure, so positive, her seriousness eeked out and filled the room with a stifling air. Pressure increased and so heat followed suit; nonchalance folded and left the playing table. She took over the game and changed the rules. She wasn't playing for money she was playing to win. She had all the cards on her side: the mud-covered rug, the hand printed walls, and the ten little messy fingers with the worries face attached. He decided to cut his losses and take what winnings he had left.
The child ran out of the dirty room and hid, deperately, from his mother.

something in our relationship had changed

She cringed slightly and twisted away. I plushed my kiss a little harder, smiling.
"Not now," she said. She sunk deeper into the down comforter that covered her bed. She was in another world, one titled The Golden Compass, I wanted her back in mine. But no longer did she seem to want to be there. The joy that surged through me everytime she touched me hadn't enlivened my cells in a long time. At first she needed me. She needed me with her, to hold her, to kiss her. And I needed her like I needed oxygen. But now she read. She took herself away from me. She drifted through a world where demons talked to young girls who witnessed poisonings. She left me sitting, waiting for old men to die on the page before it could turn and I could have her to myself again. But she never wanted to turn the page.
"Let's do things with 'other people' for once," she said and tore my heart out. So we spent the evening with "other people". She laughed and giggled and tickled "other people". She devoted her attention to "other people". I beat the ground with a stick, I sat on the floor and died, unbeknownst to "other people". Alone. She lived and loved in other worlds with "other people".
"My best friend's coming over," she said and I died a little more. They sat and laughed at old memories caputred in still. Memories I never had, inside jokes I'd never know: I could never compare. I, who was "needed", was useless, was second rate.
I cried. She tried to sympathize but she knew that something had changed.
The weekend was over; I would never come to see her again.