There was, however, a sticky note stuck to the stainless steel fridge.

"off 2 meeting, b back l8r, luv u!"

It was punctuated with a little smiley face. She left in on the fridge, pulling out some leftover noodles to be heated up and taken to the couch to mull over her thoughts.

She watched the steam rise off the freshly microwaved noodles and decided she had time to grab her robe from the other room. It didn't feel like a getting-dressed kind of day, and she had a feeling Alex would be out late anyway. Besides that, rain was pouring down outside. No point in going out like that.

So she sat there all afternoon, having imaginary conversations with Alex in her mind, plotting the course of where different choices in life would take her, trying potential futures on for size.

She tried reassuring herself that this sudden realization of seeming lack of a shared future with Alex had occurred organically and was not related to any dormant feelings for certain others. It wasn't like she wanted to dump the guy over the color of the sheets. Whether or not to bring new lives into the world was kinda a big deal.

Thoughts of her past only added another layer of melancholy. She pressed her palm against the windowpane, feeling the coolness of the glass and watching the raindrops trickle down to the windowsill, and wondered when her life had become a cliche. She really needed to talk with Alex.

But late the afternoon Alex burst through the door, announcing a new movie deal and asking Sarah out to celebrate. As they sat on linen seats and sipped red wine while piano music wafted through the air, she certainly couldn't bring it up then.

And she couldn't bring up later that night, he was still too happy. She would try tomorrow, let him have this night.

But the next morning he was in a conference call, and that afternoon he slapped down a pair of theatre tickets in front of her. As they left the theatre that evening, she checked her email on phone and discovered a message from her publisher.

"Alex, look. They got back with me about what changes to make. That's... A lot. Man."

Obviously she couldn't have a deep life changing talk when she was busy with editing and re-writing.

So life went on for a while, awkward and slightly stilted, each of them dancing around the topic of the future, Sarah trying hard not to plan anything too far ahead, and Alex trying to fill any pause that went past twenty seconds for fear of what Sarah might bring up.

It wasn't until several months later that they had begun to notice the changes that had been set in motion. Sarah was busier with her writing, and Alex had been busy with his own screenwriting. They still talked, and they still lived together, but it had begun to feel like they were talking across a wide canyon and existing in the same place but at different times.

It finally could no longer be avoided one day, as they walked along the sidewalk of a shopping centre comprised of numerous smaller stores.

Alex glanced up the name of one of the stores and stopped, going up to the display in the window.

"Sarah, look at this." he pointed at the blue velvet case in the jeweller's window.

She looked back for a second, already having walked ahead of him.

"What is it?" she asked as she came closer.

He didn't respond - they had both felt so quiet that day, as if they had run out of words - and instead pointed at a specific piece of jewellery.

A diamond ring, to be exact.

Sarah's heart sank.

"Oh, Alex." she said softly. "Why?"

"Come on, why not?" he tried to pull of a half joking tone, and failed, sounding instead like he was pleading. "We love each other, don't we?" he looked again at the ring in the window.

Sarah was silent.

"I just-" he started and stopped. "I just, I feel like... I'm losing you. And I don't know what to do about it." his face was heartbroken, and Sarah felt her own heart start to break just looking at him.

"Alex." Sarah pulled him away from the window and embraced him. "Of course we love each other. That's why this could never work out for us. I love you too much to ask you to give up your dreams for your future... For your family. Because if either of us were to compromise, even if it sounds so fine right now, we'd start to resent the other down the road. And I don't want to resent you, and I don't want you to resent me."

He squeezed her tighter, resting his forehead on her shoulder and sniffing back tears. She had to blink back a few of her own.

"And you're wrong. You could never lose me, because even when we aren't together anymore, you'll still have all those times we spent together, all those late nights, those texts and phone calls, everything. All of it. Nothing can take that from us."

Tears were rolling down her face now.

"I don't regret anything at all. I'm so glad we had those years together."

It was as if all the words she had been struggling to find over the past months suddenly all came at once. She wasn't entirely sure she was just talking about Alex.

"You need to live your life, and I need to live mine. And it was so awesome that for a little while, the path of our lives traveled the same direction." she sniffed. "But I think our paths are splitting now, pretty soon. And that's no ones fault, you know? That's just how it goes. But it was so, so good while it lasted. So good."

They stood there like that, hugging and crying, for a little while longer. Then they composed themselves as best they could, smiled at each other with watery eyes, and walked hand-in-hand down the sidewalk again.