"You've got to believe it'll be alright again." A voice whispered from behind him, but he was gone. He had expected pain of some sort, but he didn't feel a thing. He was empty. His mind was replaying the words over and over again. He was trying to wrap his head around anything that made some sort of sense. Why was he now learning that he loved her? Why was it that after all this time pretending, he had developed feelings? It was too late. He wasn't going to get her back, and he knew he didn't deserve her. What he had done had been wrong, but he couldn't help but feel dignified. It had been his job. He had been told to do it, and he would be damned if he apologized for it. His job was going to be there long after she was gone, and he had proven it. After he had told her that he had been lying to her, she had just up and left. He didn't even have the chance to explain that it was because he needed to. For her protection, she couldn't know who he was. It was dangerous to her, and he needed her around. Dealing with losing her would be too tough. Of course he had dealt with death before, but never someone he cared so much for. His mother had been a drunk and her death had been long awaited, and his father had never been around. Losing them had left him with little feeling, other than relief. This time was different, He felt as though he couldn't catch his breath. He wanted to run after her, but moving seemed impossible. He felt as though he was going to become eternally glued to this spot. He would grow old and die here, like many before him. He now knew what all those people were talking about when they claimed they would never recover from a pain this real.
The voice that had been so far away now was closer and warmer than before. "Nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow…" He closed his eyes. The words were meant for comfort, but they were anything but. He knew what was going to happen tomorrow. He would wake up in an empty flat, picking up the shattered pieces of what used to be a calm guy. He had been suave and what he thought was sexy, but now, sitting here on the carpeted floor of the hallway, he knew that he was anything but the sexy man he envisioned. He wanted to brush this off. He had lost girlfriends before, but never like this. Before this moment, he had made the assumption that nothing could break the two apart. He thought that they could make it through anything. Now he knew the truth. When the going got tough, the girl got going. Now he was sitting outside of his apartment. How was he going to walk in there knowing that she wasn't there? That the apartment was going to go back to being messy and for one person. He closed his eyes tightly and waited for the person to sit down next to him. His hand rested in hers, and for the first time he spoke. It may have been two simple words, but they held meaning that he couldn't have faked. "Thank you." He whispered, and together they got up and walked through his door. No one said it was going to be easy, they just said it would be worth it…And for the first time, he believed it.