BYE!

SHE
“I have to let you go; we can’t continue like this, not like this, I can’t do this anymore”.

“Don’t I have a say in this, you’re not the only person involved here, and you’re not the only one with a heart, you can’t do this to us.”

“Maybe I’m doing this for us as opposed to us; maybe I’m trying to save one of us from the inevitable.”

“You can’t say that, I’m miserable without you, you’re miserable without me and we are both hurting, this conversation is hurting us both, why are we talking about this again?”

“Because one of us has to be practical and face the reality, which is that you’ll be married in a couple of months and everything changes, every damn thing!”

“That’s not entirely true and you know it, you know why I have to do this and nothing will change between us, nothing! Not a damn thing!”

“Stop it! You can’t say that just because that’s what you want to happen, it’s what you want to believe, life is not that accommodating, damn it!”

**************
HE

“I love you and I’ve loved you now for twenty four years or more. I know how to make you happy. I know your nuisances; I’ve learned to accept you and them unconditionally. I need you, I can’t breathe if you are not in my life, and I wouldn’t know how to be if you are not there, can’t you understand that? What do you want me to do, if you say call the whole thing off I will, just say it! (Very passionately) I’m not losing you! I can’t lose you!”

SHE

“Sweetie I can’t say that, I don’t have the right. I know you have to do what you have to do and I know it’s hard and will take a great amount of courage on your part, but I can’t say that because I’m not in a position to demand anything from you. You know that! That’s why all of this is so fraustrating! Don’t you know my heart is breaking too?”

“I know you’ll probably don’t understand this, but I want this for you, I want you to be happy and because I love you that much, I want you to be truly happy and begin to live the quality life you deserve. You deserve that as much as the next guy, you’re a great and genuine person, a bit screwed up (smile) but that’s a part of your charm. I want this for you, really.”

“What we have is truly great and genuine, I love you and regardless of what we went through I’ve always loved you. Might have given you a hard time in the past, might have ignored you because I needed to heal, might have chased you away for awhile, but throughout it all you knew I loved you, even when I gave up on us, you never did.

“Sweetie I’m afraid this is it and there’s no easy way to do this or say this, but its good-bye. You know this is the right thing to do for both of us. We, you, I, we have to do this.”

With hot salty tears flowing in their tight embrace and sob- racking bodies clung tightly together, they kissed and hugged for what seem like forever before she pulled away, ran blindly towards her car, jumped in turned the key in the ignition and drove away.

She looked at him one last time and saw him standing there looking sad and lost.
“Oh God, what are we doing” she asked, as the tears flowed and her heart ached.

Suddenly her phone rang and she looked at it, saw the number and answered in a phony cheerful voice, “I’m on my way home baby, I’ll be there within the hour, yes, I love you too, see you in a few.”

Phone rang again and she saw the familiar number. With eager hands she reached over to get the phone and then thought better of it. She had to be strong. Ignoring the ringing phone she threw it in her bag and got ready to greet her husband at the door. The phone stopped ringing.