“Tell me,” he said, “what went wrong?”
“Everything,” she said, trying to avoid
the sad and piercing look on the eyes that once gazed at her with such love and
affection, “You. Me. Us.”
He was speechless for a moment. As much
as he tried to shake his head for the reasons why it was happening, nothing
came out of it.
“But I love you,” he helplessly
muttered. That was all he could ever come up with. Lame, he told himself.
He knew she heard him, but she just
turned her back away, and slowly reached the doorknob to finally escape the
predicament of explaining things to him.
She could already feel the coldness of
the knob pressed against her palm. That was it, the moment she had been dying
to happen for a very long time. She just needed to turn the knob to the right,
and she could finally taste freedom welcoming her from the outside.
But she failed. She couldn’t move on
her place at all. She could strongly feel the presence of the man who once
meant the world to her behind her, patiently waiting for her to change her
mind, patiently waiting for her to turn around and figure things out once and
for all. She had been with him for years, and walking away from him was
something she found so difficult to do, but it was also something that she should
have done a long time ago. No matter how much she hated to admit it, her
feelings for him were still there, lingering in every inch of her being.
“Please stay,” his voice failed to
suppress the tears that were on the verge of falling. He needed her more than
anything, he needed her more than life itself. He was so used to being with her
that the life he had lived before her was nothing but more than an ambiguous
memory, an oddly unfamiliar phase. His life began when she came along. He
couldn’t just let her slip away from him. No way, God, no way.
Her hand was still around the knob. She
couldn’t take it anymore that she trembled. She needed to go. She needed to
walk out of the door before the strength she mustered completely wane. She
sighed and opened the door.
Freedom. It was all that she wanted.
But before she walked out of the door
and continue living without the presence of him in her life at all, she faced
him again. She was certain that that was the last time she’ll be seeing his
face, and the thought gave her a sudden surge of sadness, longing, and despair.
She immediately brushed the feeling off
and started to speak, “I loved you, and you loved me. There’s no doubt about
that,” she hesitated for a moment, “But that was it. That was what we ever had.
But the thing here is . . . love isn’t
enough. Love isn’t the only component a relationship needs for it to work.
There’s a lot more to it than love itself. And that’s what we lacked from the
very beginning – the will and the drive to actually make this work, to make us work after all. We’ve held on to each
other for so long because none of us was brave enough to acknowledge the fact
that something was wrong. But now, it’s about the right time. We must accept
that this is where our relationship ends. We’ve both reached our finish line.
This is all we could ever be.”
“I . . .” he couldn’t find the right
words to say, because something inside him said that what she just said was
true after all. He couldn’t disagree, but he couldn’t bring himself to agree
either.
She smiled a sad smile, and his heart
fluttered at the mere sight of it, just like the very first time.
“I have to go. Take care of yourself,
and always remember that I will never love someone again the way I loved you,”
that’s it, and she was out of his room, out of his world, out of his grasp, and
ultimately, out of his life.
He was surprised to realize that that was the only thing he needed to
know. He slumped down on his chair as the tears finally consumed him, believing
that there’s no way he’ll ever stop thinking about her. He knew that he’ll
still love her from afar, no matter how difficult it is done.
