If You Leave Now, You Lose Everything

His voice never sounded so cold.

"This will never work out, Taylor. We both know it yet we keep traveling down this road and sooner or later we're going to hit a wall. I'd rather it be sooner."

Her eyes were now filled to the brim with the salty liquid that was now turning her eyes a pale shade of pink. She was standing behind him, maybe ten feet or so, staring at him with his back to her, holding his bags and only mere seconds away from walking out that door for the very last time.

"If you leave now you lose everything," the tears suddenly overflowed and spilled out onto her flushed cheeks.

"You lose us," she continued with both her eyes and voice pleading, hoping he'd find that voice somewhere in his heart that was telling him he should stay.

"Our friendship," her voice lowered and the pain began to seep through her tone.

"We said we'd still be friends if this didn't work. What happened? What has changed?"

This sounded more like a plea to herself, but he wasn't sure, so he replied anyways.

"Honestly?" His voice much less hostile this time, "I had never thought that I would actually fall in love with you," tears were now brimming his eyes as well. He remained standing at the door, bags in hand, except now he turned to face her, eyes glassy with the moisture.

She collapsed onto the couch behind her, sitting with her head in her hands and trying to hide her sobs. She searched her brain for a reasonable explanation for all of this. All of the promises they had made to each other. The promises that he made to her. How they said they could always call it off and go back to being friends if this, whatever it had been, didn't work out.

"Why would you promise me?" Is all she managed to get out in between sobs, her voice muffled by her arms.

"I've never been in love like this before," he said with a crackling voice, "I didn't know how to love another person until I met you. I barely even knew what it meant to 'fall in love'. I can't go back to being friends because nothing will be the same or just go back to the way it used to be. It's my fault and I should have never promised you those things." Tears were now falling from his eyes.

She quickly shot up from the sofa and closed the gap between them. This time she was the hostile one. She ripped the bags from his hands and tossed them onto the couch.

"Then tell me why we can't make this work, Ed. Tell me why you have to go. Tell me why you can't just stay one more night and we can talk about this in the morning."

Her pleas were getting desperate, but she was running out of ways to get him to stay. At this point she was trying to stop the inevitable. She was just trying to stall him from leaving. She wanted him in her life and she knew that as soon as he walked out the door, he'd be gone for good, and this time she wouldn't have a date when he'd be back to see her.

Her eyeliner was now flowing along with her tears. And she had her index finger dug into his chest.

He grabbed her arm and moved it down as he continued.

"I never see you. Even when we plan time to see each other it's always a month after we saw each other last. An entire month," he said, trying to get her to understand, "My career-it's just now starting to take off and when I make it big what happens then? We see each other maybe once every three months? Every six months? It's so stressful, I know."

They were now hand in hand and she looked up at him with sad, droopy eyes, wanting more.

"I can't be friends with you, because Taylor," his voice was a higher pitch now, "I can't stand talking to you knowing that I still love you. Knowing that we had something, and now we don't anymore and there's nothing we can do about it. It won't work."

His words shot through her veins like ice, and for a brief moment she closed her eyes, hoping that the stinging would go away. When she opened them she didn't have any words. She took his face gently in her hands and they stood like that for a moment until she crushed their lips together. He returned the pressure. Nothing about this felt right to them. Not after all the words they had just exchanged. Not after the thousands of warm, passionate kisses they had shared in the past year. It was forced, but it bought her some time to process everything. He was the first to pull away. He took his shirtsleeves and wiped her cheeks dry and then walked past her to retrieve his bags.

"Um, I'll, uh call you when I get back to England, love," he said while rubbing his nose. Walking past her, he reluctantly handed her the key to her home.

She remained unmoved and untouched as he opened the door, looked one last time over his shoulder and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

She couldn't remember how long she stood there before her limbs collapsed onto the floor. It was 4am before she felt her eyelids flutter and she fell asleep on the cold hardwood floor, her phone on the ground by her head waiting for the call. Maybe once they had time to think about this she thought that he would be more rational. She'd stay like this on the floor until he'd call. She kept rattling her brain for ways she could make this work until she had a pretty convincing proposition, but she couldn't tell in the state she was in if it was actually good or not, so she slept.