I go to counselling. I tell her everything, and she reassures me that I'm not going crazy. We work on how I can stop making myself small, how I can set boundaries to protect myself. She tells me how I have been working on myself and that the relationship hasn't been growing with me. It's starting to make sense. I see him more clearly now, and I can't stand for it.

I ask if he wants to come skiing with me. I want to be out in the trees in the quiet night, with snow falling down in big puffy clumps. He agrees to come.

He is miserable. Complaining about snow coming in the top of his boots. I ask about his day. He had a miserable day.

He asks about my counselling. I tell him about it, how it made me feel better and how she gave me some tools to try. I tell him what she said about me working on myself but the relationship not shifting along with me, and how that is causing the friction that we are experiencing.

Something blows up inside of him. I don't know what I said. He turns and skis off back down the road into the night. I stand there in the dark alone, out on a closed road in the National Park. I have nothing but my headlamp and the spare house key. Slushy snow falling, the night intensely dark.

I squint and watch him ski down the road. His form melts into the dark. I can tell that he's not going to wait for me.

It feels symbolic. It feels like the end.

I push off and slide down the road, my skis falling into my uptracks. I push open my chest and splay my arms wide, taking in the magical slushy night, the trees creaking around me.

I fly into the darkness with wild abandon.