W h e n . Y o u . A r e . D y i n g

She sat in front of me on the floor.  Her legs were crossed and so were my arms.  I had nothing to say and found it difficult to look at her.  Even though my eyes were centered on the wall, I could still feel her eyes burning into me.  The silence was deafening.  The awkward pain coming from the two of us in this small room was enough to drown anyone within it.  All I wanted, was things to go back to the way they were.

It felt as though everything around me was dying.  Even the material items around us.  It's as though when you can feel a relationship dying, you can feel everything else dying as well.  Nothing seems to be alive anymore.  Nothing seems to be worth it.  A couch not worth sitting on, a game is not worth playing, a TV no longer worth watching...  Everything is just dead.

She was in shut down mode.  Shut down mode meant that I would do the majority of the talking and get nothing for a response.  This is how the majority of our fights were played.  In my peripheral vision I watched as she wiped a tear away from her cheek.  Why did it have to come down to this?  Why does something great that two people have, have to be torn apart from them?  It made no sense to me.  Her decisions made no sense to me.  And this whole process of breaking up and getting back together just further reinforced the back of my mind telling me she had found someone else.  There seemed to be no other logical reasoning for this madness.  When something is perfect, you don't fix it.

I wanted to yell at her.  I wanted to get on my knees and beg for her.  But I knew it would be pointless.  Especially for as young as she was... she needed to get out and do her own thing and I would have to let her.  Even if that meant that I would never see her again.  Just the thought brought so much pain to my chest that I felt a tear form in my left eye. 

I took my eyes off the wall and looked at her.  She was still staring at me with those beautiful eyes.  There was emptiness behind them.  How long has she been hiding this?  How long has she been lying to me?  My lips opened and then closed.  Should I say it?  A minute rolled by in pure silence before I decided that she wasn't going to say it, and she was looking for me to initiate the conversation.

"What are you going to do?"  A little anger mixed in with my words as they rolled off my tongue.  I couldn't believe she was literally going to do this.  After our last break-up, I warned her that if she ever tried to leave again, it would be the final goodbye and I wouldn't be able to ever take her back.  She said that she never wanted to leave, that she loved me and wanted me now and forever.  Just solid dark lies now.

She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.  She was still in shut-down mode.  That basically meant that I was coming up with the answer on my own.  However, I knew her well enough to know what her answer really was.  I knew that she wanted to leave.  She was wanting me to kick her out so that she wasn't the bad guy.  After spending years with someone day in and day out, it's almost as though you can read their minds.

I rolled my eyes.  I couldn't help it.  This was so frustrating.  If you wanted to end it, just end it.  If you don't want to be with me, then just tell me.  Stop hinting around the idea of what you want and waiting for me to do it.  It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair.  I wanted her to say it, and I was going to make her say it.

I started to open my mouth and then she said it.  "I shouldn't have came back so soon.  I should have stayed away."

I could feel my face burn instantly.  "You're damn right you should have.  Now you're throwing everything we have away, just so that you can 'live your twenties'."  I huffed in disgust and let out a heavy sigh.  "You realize that if you leave again, it's over."

"Yeah."  Her voice was empty.  Emotionless.  Her head hung and her shoulders were shrunken in. 

Something screamed inside of me.  This was not how it was supposed to end with her.  I had dreamed of several possibilities of why we wouldn't work out, but I always figured it would be mutual.  And definitely not this soon.  Something just wasn't right here.  With everything as perfect as it was, it should not have come down to this ending.  There had to be something else that she was hiding.  But even if she was, I wouldn't be getting it out of her while she was in shut down mode. 

Our entire relationship she had always asked me for permission before doing something.  If she wanted to go out with friends, she asked me first if it was okay.  If she wanted a new pair of shoes, she would ask me first if she could buy them.  As many times as I reminded her that she did not have to ask me for permission, that I had no control over her decisions, she would still do it.  I felt now that she was doing the same.  She wasn't getting up and packing her stuff.  She wasn't moving, and she wasn't talking.  She had not asked, but she was waiting for me to give her permission to go.

I took my eyes off of her and stared at my hands in my lap.  It did not matter whether I gave her permission or not, she would eventually go.  When you have something so perfect in your hands and you have to let it go, how do you do so without breaking your own heart?  She had my heart in her hands, and sacrificing her meant sacrificing my heart as well.  Human nature says forget what she wants, be greedy and take what you want.  But I knew, deep down, that I was not going to be able to keep this no matter how tight my grip was.  "If you love something, you have to be able to let it go."  Whoever came up with that ridiculous quote was not standing in my shoes right now.

Still staring at my lap, my fingers twirled and played with the pen I found in my pocket.  I let my thoughts roll off my tongue without looking up at her.  "You should go."  My voice was monotone and just over the volume of a whisper.

The words were more powerful spoken than I imagined they would be.  I felt every syllable crush my heart.  She did not say a word, but rather stood up and went to the bedroom and started packing her stuff.  "Follow your heart, and not your mind."  Since she took my heart from me after I crushed it with those words, I followed it to the bedroom and helped her.  No words were spoken.  Not a "thank you", not a "screw you", not even an "I love you."

Just as we started this day out, the silence deafened everything.  I watched as she packed the final things into the car.  This was my last chance to say something to stop her.  And yet there was nothing I could possibly do in order to stop her.  I was watching the best thing that ever happened to me walk out the door.  The girl that had helped me in so many ways, was walking away from me now, and I stood helpless... hopeless. 

"God places people in our lives in order for us to use them for a certain amount of time.  Whether it's a new-found friend that's there every night for a couple of weeks, a father for half of your life, or a girlfriend for a couple of years, they are there for a purpose.  You may not see the purpose now, or ever, but just remember their footprints, and their hand prints, will be forever imprinted on your heart."

I can't imagine ever finding someone that fit me as perfectly as she did.  I will always carry her with me.  She closed the car door and looked up at me.  Still not a word from her.  Her silence broke my heart.  I wanted to run up to her and squeeze the life out of her, kiss her one last time and tell her how much I loved her, but without my heart, my legs stood paralyzed at the door.  She may have done this the wrong way, but I may have as well.  I pray that it's not a mistake that lasts forever.

I turned around and closed the door behind me.  I did not move, but just crumbled to the floor.  The tears were pouring now and the pathetic sound of trying to breathe through sobs carried down the empty hallway.  So this is what it feels like...  This is what it feels like to be dead.