Calgon, take me away...

"I'm falling for you."

"I have feelings for you."

The words filter through the air and come to rest on the sheets in the space between us.

Emotions alone cannot bridge this chasm of needs, memories of shared experiences cannot become stepping stones leading from me to him.

Perhaps I knew this, entering into it.
Perhaps I knew, and ignored.

I've gotten so good at that, these last few years.

Ignoring signs, taking the (temporarily) easy path.

But we find those tangle trees at the end. Piers Anthony taught me that when I was little.

This is my choice.

The realization that he cannot provide me what I've finally admitted to myself that I want:

A long-term,
committed,
monogamous
relationship
ending in marriage.

Kids? That's still unknown, and will likely depend on whatever man I do settle down with.

Social pressures? My own driving need to serve, to bond, to have that lifemate? Is that something from within me or something from outside myself that has leaked in, my eager, youthful exposure to Disney movies and fairytales, that one true match, that dress and veil.

Perhaps some song and dance numbers featuring overly cute, non-rabid woodlife.

Looking into that face I've come to know so well, the dark creases at the corners of his eyes, the wide palms, olive skin, mottled with freckles. Straight teeth. Green eyes with yellow starbursts at their centers.

Our hands were held in the middle, across our bodies, trying to physically bridge what reality has taken hold to part.

At the bumper of my car, face buried in his neck, heat rising, chests pressed together.

Is this the last time I will hold you?

I drove to work.

I will not cry.

It was another one of those terminating moments where you wished you had known that this was the last. The last kiss, the last round of sex, the last time you would sleep in his bed, shower in his bathroom.

Leave the apartment. And that's it.

There's no going back.

Speaking with Marquis has taught me that.

The minute you go back, the minute you give into your emotions, you are stating that the pain of the moment, the pain that will pass you by soon enough, is too much for you. And you would rather avoid it and give up to the action of moving on, of respecting yourself and your needs, fully knowing that this person will never be able to be that one for you and accepting that.

Do not linger.

Every time you go back, you take away respect and credibility.

Because to go back is to bow. Is to hand that person your heart and tell them that you know they're going to crush it in their grip, but if they could just hold off a few more months (and let the strength of their fingers gather while time passes), you'd really appreciate it.

And they will close on you.

Not with aggression, not with intent, but because being with someone who cannot provide what you need without changing themselves, and you cannot ask for that change, will hurt you. Eventually you'll find where the two plotted courses intersect and you'll head in different directions.

But not without that collision.

Without them taking pieces of you with them, and pieces of them with you.

That's the nature of contact. The stronger surface removes particles of the weaker, until one is rubbed smooth. Obliterated, maybe?

So I told him, over those sheets, that I could not do it. That I could not be happy with what he was offering, and he would not change. I would not want him to change who he is.







And then it was over.