Acceptance of Defeat

Don't go yet.

Not because I think we can save this.

I think that might be the saddest part.

We both know we can't.

So stay.

Just for another minute.

Sit there on your side of the room and I'll sit here on mine,

with all the things we have already said lying broken between us.

We don't need to talk anymore.

We have talked this love into the ground.

We have promised.

We have forgiven.

We have tried again.

We have found different words for the same old wounds and called it progress.

We have held together something that has been asking us to let it die.

So no,

I won't ask you to stay.

But I don't want you to stand up yet.

Because while you are sitting there,

you are still here.

And when you stand,

you will reach for your coat.

Then your keys.

Then the door.

And there will be a final moment when your hand rests upon the handle

and both of us will know

this is it.

There will be no tomorrow.

No message asking if you got home safely.

No stupid photograph sent because it reminded me of you.

No birthdays.

No Christmases.

No checking in.

No friendship we pretend is enough.

There will be your life.

And mine.

And somewhere between them,

a life we almost had.

So sit with me a little longer.

Let the clock move without us.

Light another cigarette.

I won't complain about the smoke tonight.

Let it curl between us and disappear into the ceiling,

because somehow that feels appropriate.

Something that existed.

Something we could see.

Something we could almost hold.

And then,

nothing.

I want to look at you.

Really look at you.

Because tomorrow I will have to start forgetting.

Not deliberately.

Time will do that for me.

One day I won't remember exactly how your voice sounded when you were tired.

I will forget the tiny movements your face made before you laughed.

The lines beside your eyes.

The way you looked at me when there was still an us to look at.

Perhaps one day I will struggle to remember the person I once knew by heart.

God,

that hurts.

Your eyes fill.

One tear escapes.

And without thinking,

I reach across and catch it on the tip of my finger.

Such a small thing.

A tear.

A fingertip.

Two people who still love each other

and cannot stay.

You cover your face with your hands.

I look at the floor.

Neither of us says,

Maybe we should try again.

Not this time.

Because we finally understand what all those months of fighting were trying to tell us.

We weren't fighting for each other anymore.

We were fighting against the ending.

And endings don't care how desperately you wanted another chapter.

You once told me,

"If I walk out that door, I'm not coming back."

I know.

That's why I'm not asking you to leave.

Not yet.

Give me five more minutes of a future that has already ended.

Five more minutes where I still know where you are.

Five more minutes before the person I told everything to becomes somebody I will never speak to again.

Then go.

Because you have to.

And I have to let you.

But when you stand,

I won't watch.

I can't.

I know myself too well.

If I see your hand reach for that door,

I will remember every good thing.

I will forget every reason we came to this moment.

And I will ask you to stay.

So I will look down.

And you will walk.

I will hear the floorboards beneath your feet.

I will hear you stop.

I will hear the smallest hesitation before you leave.

And then,

the click.

Just a door closing.

Such an ordinary sound

for something that will divide my life into before

and after.

I won't run after you.

You won't come back.

And somewhere on the other side of that door,

we will begin learning how to be strangers.

Maybe that's what defeat really is.

Not losing.

Not failing.

Not discovering that the love wasn't real.

It was real.

That's why this hurts.

Defeat is finally understanding that love cannot always save the people who feel it.

It is loosening your hands from something you still want

because holding tighter will only hurt you both.

It is loving someone enough to stop asking them to live a life that doesn't fit them.

So go.

Not because I stopped loving you.

Go because I didn't.

And I will sit here with the silence,

the cigarette smoke,

the tear that touched my finger,

and every ordinary Tuesday we will never have.

I will grieve them all.

The house.

The Christmas mornings.

The ageing faces.

The life we kept trying to force into existence.

And eventually,

I will accept that some people can be the love of a lifetime

without being the person you spend your lifetime with.

But not tonight.

Tonight,

just give me five more minutes.

Then close the door.