Prologue

So don't leave me

And I know you're justified

So don't leave me

'Cause a part of you in me died

We wish ourselves beautiful

We cry in the night

And it's not the love you feared

But the fall from the height

My personal ledges

Afraid to look down

My crepe paper bridges

Enough water to drown

~ Edwin McCain: Ghosts of Jackson Square

Looking back on things our parting wasn't as cut and dry as our break up in high school. There were no clearly defined roles being played in the blame game. Last time it was me and my insecurity, Ashley and her fears of what moving beyond her past would mean and Aiden and his betrayal of both our trusts.

This time, however, there was no Aiden, not like that anyway, Ash had moved on quite nicely to her roll as songwriter and devoted girlfriend, while I was more than secure in the knowledge that Ashley loved me. We were living together weren't we?

It was a gradual movement, like the shifting of tectonic plates. We were Pangea, slowly but steadily drifting apart with wide oceans filling the space between us. It might have been easier if we had been fighting, if there were screaming matches and ugly words hurled at one another. Instead there were silences that stretched on for days, brushes of skin that would have once resulted in sparked passion but now resulted in stilted and awkward apologies, for months there was an empty side of the bed, sometimes hers and sometimes mine, until soon the whole bed was empty as neither of us wanted to spend time in that house.

I don't know which one of us came to the conclusion first but it was a mutual decision of a sort. This just couldn't go on, neither of us was happy and we didn't know how to fix that flaw in ourselves let alone within the other.

So it came one afternoon when I was on my way home from college, the knowledge that when I got there she would either be gone or leaving. I slowed the car down as though perhaps prolonging the inevitable would make it not happen at all. As unhappy as I knew we were, the familiarity of having her with me and the fact that I did indeed still love her on some level that even time couldn't touch, kept me from wanting it to end completely.

I pulled into the driveway with shaking limbs and eyes filling with tears. A choked sob escaped as I tried to steady myself enough to face whatever was waiting inside. Gathering up my courage I opened my car door and got out, stealing myself for not only my own pain, but Ashley's as well.

I don't remember getting to the front door or even opening it. I just remember standing in the front hallway looking at her standing there with her bags packed and tears running down her face. I was relieved to find her still there but upset at the same time, I wished that I didn't have to deal with this in person but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't say goodbye. I knew Ashley felt that too, that's why she waited for me.

As I looked in her streaming eyes though, I knew that wasn't the only reason she waited. She wanted me to fix this. She wanted me to figure out a way, in a few short minutes, how to change things between us but I couldn't. I was just as much at a loss as she was. Ashley didn't know how to stay and I no longer knew how to ask her to.

So I found myself in front of her and leaned in wrapping my arms around her shaking frame. I leaned my cheek against hers and whispered in her ear,

"I love you. I don't-" I trailed off unsure of how to continue. "Maybe next time?" I half asked with what some might call a rather flippant shrug but Ashley knew it was just because I was at such a loss I didn't know what else to do.

With a final, fierce kiss she left me there in our foyer. The sound of the door closing behind her marking the finality of what had transpired.

It would be days before I remembered anything but the sound of that door or the emptiness that followed.

TBC....