I am led to believe that the appropriate term to use in order to describe breakfast with Leonard the following morning would be 'awkward.' Penny and Leonard's confrontation last night had reminded me of my childhood back in Texas, with my mother and father constantly yelling at each other from dusk till dawn. Unlike the last time I had eavesdropped on a conversation, nothing I had heard had made me experience guilt, confusion, anger or sadness. It was quite simple: Penny had ended her relationship with Leonard before he had the chance to. Though Penny was true to her word, and my name was never mentioned in their 'conversation', I knew that Leonard knew that it was I who had told Penny of his intentions, and that was how she knew. However, Leonard didn't know that I knew that he knew that I had told Penny. He probably wouldn't be able to keep up with that even if I explained it to him.

My day had already been ruined when the need to have an early bowel movement interrupted my routine. I liked routines. Things happened as they should, when they should. It didn't take somebody as intelligent as I to know that nothing would happen as it should today. As I poured myself a bowl of cereal with medium fibre content, I was alerted to Leonard's presence on the sofa as he began to stir from his slumber. It appeared that he had not adjourned to bed last night.

"Good morning."

"Is it?" Leonard retorted, shielding his eyes from the daylight. Something changed in his facial expression as he spoke. I didn't know what it was though, I needed more information before I could hypothesise.

"How are you today?" I asked, in order to fulfill an obligation to ask Leonard how he was feeling at least once every day, even if I didn't care.

"Why, is there any reason that I shouldn't be okay?"

"Just asking. It's social protocol." I had no patience to wait for a response. "What are you doing today?"

"I think a better question would be 'what did you do yesterday, Sheldon?'" There was something different in Leonard's voice. The pitch was a little higher than normal, and he emphasised my name as if I did not know that it was mine.

"Oh, nothing much. I simply continued my latest work into string theory and quantum physics because, as you know, I am a theoretical physicist."

"Yeah, I knew that," he said. Having shared an apartment with Leonard for a few years now, I believed that I was adept at interpreting his facial expressions. The one currently being displayed was irritation. Well, either irritation or constipation. I could never be too sure, because even though he had frequently ridiculed my practice of ordering cereals by their fibre content, I suspected that he used my system in times of trouble. Unfortunately, I had not been able to collect enough data and evidence in order to either prove or disprove my theory, and so a constipated Leonard remained a valid diagnosis in my mind. "I knew that, Sheldon. I also know something else."

"You only know one other thing besides the fact that my occupation is a theoretical physicist? I was aware that your intelligence is lower than mine, but really Leonard, that is quite shocking."

"Are you trying to make a joke?"

Honestly, there was no need for him to sound so incredulous. "Yes, it's an experiment. I wanted to see if it would help to relieve the present atmosphere that I believe could be aptly relieved by following the actions within the idiom 'cut the atmosphere with a knife.'"

"Whatever," said an exasperated Leonard. "I know something that you don't know."

"Unlikely, but continue."

"There's no way that you could possibly know this piece of information."

"Again, unlikely. Don't think that you're at an advantage here, Leonard. With my eidetic memory, I could recall a piece of information that I read once many years ago as clearly as if it were yesterday."

"Don't worry, Sheldon. You don't have to trawl through years of memories to recall this particular piece of information. You only learnt it a little while ago, and so your recollection should be quite clear."

"I'm sure it will be," I answered. "Well, what is this piece of information?"

"I had no need to worry about entrusting a secret to somebody that I thought was my friend. Everything went swimmingly yesterday, just as I'd planned." There was a pause. I presumed he was waiting for a response, so I offered one.

"Is that sarcasm?"

"Yes! Well done, Sheldon!"

"Was that sarcasm too?"

"Stop it, Sheldon! Penny dumped me last night because she found out that I was planning to end our relationship, and she wanted to beat me to it!"

"So?"

"What do you mean 'so?'"

"Well, you wanted the relationship to end, and it has. This was always the inevitable conclusion, so I don't understand what your problem is."

"My problem, Sheldon, is that you told her what I was going to do! You betrayed my trust. Not only that, you didn't even tell her why I was going to do it!"

"As you have never told me why you wanted to end your relationship, I can see no feasible way of how I would have been able to tell her."

"Fine! You want to know the reason? Well, do you?" Leonard seemed to be demanding a response from me, but before I could tell him that I had very little interest in the reason, he answered his own question anyway. "I'm moving away from Pasadena."

"Don't be absurd. You can't 'move away'. You're my roommate."

"I need to go home, Sheldon. Some family crisis involving my sister and some gibbons."

"The ones she's working with to cure diabetes?"

"Yeah, she... It doesn't matter! The point is, you had no right to tell Penny that I was going to break up with her."

"Penny is a good friend of mine. She asked me directly if you had mentioned 'terminating your relationship' with her, and you know that I can't lie to anybody or keep a secret without developing nervous tics! If you were my friend, you wouldn't put me in that situation."

"Okay, maybe you weren't the best person to confide in with a secret," Leonard admitted. I was about to open my mouth and announce my victory in the argument when he continued. "But then you shouldn't have been eavesdropping!"

"Look, it doesn't matter. The point is, I don't see why you moving away for a little while to deal with a family crisis means that you had to end your relationship with Penny."

"I don't know if or when I'll be coming back. That's why I had to end it. It wouldn't be fair to Penny. And you know, things haven't really been the same since we broke up and got back together last time."

"Yes, you're right. Penny deserves better."

"Excuse me? How can you be the judge of that?"

"I've simply been observing social protocol in situations like this. You haven't even mentioned the possibility of a long-distance relationship, which indicates that you're not really that bothered about a relationship with Penny. Again."

"Whatever you say, Sheldon! You're always right, aren't you?" This confused me for a second. Leonard would not usually concede so easily. Oh, wait. I understood now.

"Sarcasm again?"

"Yes. Honestly, Sheldon, I don't know why I put up with you sometimes." Leonard stormed out of the flat. This did not concern me. When he had done this on previous occasions, he visited Penny's flat. Other social protocols and norms indicated that this was no longer a possibility. I was right. Within three minutes, he had returned. I hypothesized that he would have been back sooner except his pride had prevented him from doing so.

"Oh, and by the way Leonard, I already knew that you knew that I informed Penny so that she knew of your intentions. I found it difficult to sleep last night with all the screaming and the shouting, ergo I heard everything that was said. Therefore, most of our earlier conversation was irrelevant."

For a moment, I didn't think Leonard would respond. I was wrong. "Why do you care about Penny so much all of a sudden? When I asked you to lie, or make an omission, in the past, you always went to great lengths to try and make it as believable as possible. Why couldn't you have done that when Penny asked you if I wanted to break up with her?"

"Believe me, I've been asking myself the same question," I muttered to myself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter." It seemed that we were at an impasse.

"Well," said Leonard eventually. "I'd better go and pack my suitcases."

"That would be logical, given that a working teleport has not been invented yet."

After Leonard had disappeared into his room, I had a little while to ponder. It had taken me years to finally commit to a 'dating' relationship with a woman, albeit a platonic one with Amy Farrah Fowler, but now I found myself torn between Penny and Amy. If I 'loved' Penny, did that mean that I couldn't love Amy? Or vice versa? It was a matter of fact that I found it a lot easier to initiate physical contact with Penny rather than Amy, but was that love or was it lust?

I couldn't love Penny, could I? The guys had frequently remarked that I was incapable of such feelings, and I was pretty certain that Penny had no romantic feelings towards me whatsoever.

The only person whom I felt was intelligent enough to help me with this dilemma was Amy, but I'd learned that social protocol indicated that this wouldn't be acceptable. It seemed that I only had once choice; whilst Leonard was busy, I would have to go and speak to Penny.