My Story: The Break

She didn't want to leave.


She wanted more than anything to stay with him, to get married like they'd planned.


She remembered how they were together before the big move and she wanted that back. But, they weren't the same people any more.


That couple who couldn't be in the same room together without touching had become that couple who couldn't be in the same room together at all.


It had been months since they touched.


They weren't talking. Or when they were, there was always hurt and anger behind their words.


If there was some way that she could get him back, some way to get back to how they were, she would stay. If only for the promise that they could one day get back to how they were. But, there wasn't any reason for her to hope that this could happen.


She told him she was going to leave. That she was going to move in with a friend back in NC and try to get her old job back.


He told her he didn't want her to. They were actually talking again.


But, she'd spent too much time feeling like she was invisible to change her mind.


They decided to look at it like it was just a vacation that she was going on, though they both really knew the truth.


She traded in her car for a sporty little black two-seater truck. It was a statement more than a vehicle: it was what a single woman would drive, not what one would buy if they were about to get married and start a family.


She went into the salon a brunette and came out a blonde. She went with him to the tattoo parlor and actually got a tattoo: not something like her at all. But, she was in so much pain that she barely felt the tat; it gave her a good excuse to cry.


Though she'd always been thin, she dropped from a size 4 to a size 0.


It was like she was trying to become someone else. Maybe someone he would love. Or maybe someone so different from who she had been that she could forget their past. Everything about their life together felt so out of her control that she wanted to have control over something.  She couldn't change what she wanted to change, so changed herself.


Shortly before she was scheduled to leave NY, they went out to lunch with his best friend and his best friend's wife as part of her saying goodbye. But, he still didn't really believe that she was leaving. His best friend told him not to let her leave, that he needed to do something to get her to stay.


But, he just shrugged it off, saying that she would come back.


If he had said it with any sort of passion, if he had talked about how much he loved her, she would  have stayed. But, he was more matter-of-fact about it, showing no inclination to go back to the loving man he had been. He was so confident that she could never leave him, despite how he'd been treating her for months.


Part of her thought that he might be right. That maybe she wouldn't be able to leave him. She still loved him so much. The memory of how they used to be together was so strong, so powerful, had such a hold on her, that maybe he was right. That they were connected and that she would rather be miserable with him than be without him.


She worried that was the truth.


And so, even though she wished that something would change and she'd be able to stay, she knew that they needed this break.


A break. That was all either one of them was willing to call it, though they both, somewhere deep down, knew the truth.


And even after she left, they talked on the phone. It was almost like how it had been before: happy and sweet and loving. Though, she could still hear in his voice that things would never be like before. But, could she find the strength in her to stay away? She needed to do something drastic before she gave in and went back to him.

If you missed any of the story of my past, where yes, I talk about myself in the third person, you can check out these links to get caught up:

10 Days After the Hurricane
Was It a Big Mistake?
A Romance Grows
And Then He Left Her
She Moves for Him
The Waiting Game
The Engagement
The Year It All Goes Wrong