AU: Lizzie and Tom are both schoolteachers. Lizzie is an aspiring romance writer. These are the details of the disintegration of her marriage with Tom told from Lizzie's perspective, through her journal entries.

Other cast members make appearances in various OOC roles.

Entry 1:

How long did you really think a woman could last without your touch? I thought that I could make myself not need you, that I could get by with supplementary touches of another, reaching out to friends and family for the tenderness I craved, for companionship, for love. I thought that I could substitute the comfort of your hands, which you were so unwilling to give, with the feel of a tiny child's arms wrapped around me, the casual hand on the elbow of a colleague, the occasional hug from a friend.

But I find myself seeking the kind words of strangers, begging companionship from a welcoming world more grateful than you. When was the last time you touched me without provocation? Caressed my shoulder just because? Have you forgotten how to make a woman feel loved? You blame your work, but to me that feels like a hollow excuse, as if you are putting, yet again, one more thing before me. It is painful.

And so, I turn again to strangers. In the vast void of shared loneliness, I am reaching out for connection, for companionship, for love; for something more tangible than this; seeking searching for things you deny me, the things you will not give.

So desperately do I crave them that I will punish myself with the anguish of my own heartbreak to make you see me. To stand before you, pleading with you to see me. And STILL you refuse my pain. Still, you close your eyes to it and yourself from me and turn away, unseeing.

I try to be patient, to talk, to wait. But you do not want my words. You want my silence, my quiet acquiescence. You want to own my emotions, to keep them tucked away in a little box so you know that I still have them, that I am not a cold, unfeeling brick of clay, but so that you do not have to see them, to experience pain and heartache, loss and depression through my eyes. You would leave me alone with it, to feel the full weight of it on my shoulders as you do with everything significant or uncomfortable or messy.

So, I let you. I try to let you have control, bending me to your will, but it is not enough; it is never enough. I am not enough to live up to your high ideal, your priceless self-control, your loftiness, held apart and unemotional from others. I am never, ever going to be enough. I MUST not be, elsewise would you refuse me any compliment, and reprieve at all from the oppressive quietude of my own thoughts? Would you not try to draw me out of myself?

You come into the kitchen, passing me on your way out to the patio for a cigarette, the first of the day.

"Who are you writing for?" you ask. "For the doctor?"

"For me. For myself, for you."

"I won't read it; I'm not going to read it."

Of course you won't.