A Place We Once Knew

Say The Word and Let Me Go

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Leaving My Love Behind - Lewis Capaldi

It's killing me to hang on and hope it's enough
So I was just wondering
Could you tell me is it all a waste of time?
Are you leaving my love behind?
Baby, say the word and let me know
You gotta give me something
I swear that I won't try to change your mind
If you're leaving my love behind
Baby, say the word and let me go

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The next two weeks were torture. It was an endless cycle of work and Elliot and run-ins with Ross. Every time she saw him, she was overcome with pangs of guilt and fits of nausea.

She tried her best to avoid too much interaction with him without making it obvious to everyone else. She hadn't ever kept a secret of this magnitude from her girlfriends, but she wasn't ready to face what they had to say. She wasn't ready to face it at all. It was so much easier to ignore it - to not think about that earth-shattering kiss she shared with him after he poured his entire heart out, telling her every word she ever longed to hear from him.

See, she was doing fine keeping him out of her mind.

It was a strange phenomenon, because as much as she didn't want any of those feelings for Ross to inhabit her heart, she still couldn't help but smile any time he made one of those goofy remarks or made some sort of fool of himself like he so often did in the most charming and endearing way...or when he shot her those fleeting glances when no one else was looking. Seeing all of the stories in his eyes painfully reminded her of the best love she had ever known. Some days those looks were the only thing giving her life.

She had never loved and hated the same thing so much in her life. The way she felt when his eyes burned into hers elicited a firestorm of love, and guilt, and pain. She wanted to both jump his bones and cry her eyes out all at the same time.

She felt more and more guilty with each passing moment, not just because of the pain she knew it would cause Eliot for stringing him along, but because of how each passing day might push Ross further and further away. She could never live with herself if she lost both of them.

But that's the thing. She didn't feel like she was stringing Elliot along because she was perfectly happy when she was with him. She spent her days trying to convince herself that he was her future and Ross was just her past, but with each new day, it became more and more clear that the two were beginning to blur together. Her heart wouldn't stop opening to the possibility of him, no matter how many times one of them had tried to close it in their past.

In one breath, it was a no-brainer to be with Elliot - the man full of promise and new possibilities who hadn't ever given her one single reason to doubt them. He had unknowingly carried her through so much. He had healed deep sighs and dried tears before they could fall. He had shown her what true peace and happiness could feel like - he was a little bit of everything she didn't even know she needed. And as soon as she had convinced herself of that truth, Ross somehow climbed back into her mind, rewording her thoughts. She was afraid to open her heart to him again. He had built it up and broken it down so many times that it was so fragile - held together by a thread. For so long she had associated all of the good that their love brought with the years of grief that followed, as if the two were one in the same. All of the good between them had become a blur, yet she was still irrevocably connected to him... drawn to him - it was like their souls were connected. She loved him so much, it hurt. And she knew something had to give. She had to start thinking clearly and she had to make a decision....before somebody made it for her.

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As she entered her bedroom after getting home from work Friday evening, she noticed a folded note lying on the foot of her bed.