Finifugal (adjective): someone who hates endings, hates to say goodbye

“I love you.”

The old man chuckled. “I know, I know. I love you, too.”

“Okay.”

“Okay…” His rough hands reached out again, the skin clearly lined with age.

“I love you.”

“Oh, for goodness sake.” As if caressing a child, his gruff yet gentle voice soothed the air. “I most certainly love you back.”

The other end of this echoing conversation sat before him in a weathered blue armchair. Her gray eyes were as elderly as his own, yet they seemed to shine like stars in the dimly-lit room.

She pulled her wrinkled lips into the best smile she could muster. “Hehe…”

Then, everything was gone.

The eyes went blank. The smile vanished. The pair of hands that was just held in his, abruptly pulled back.

Replacing the sweet affection was a tangy, thick layer of fear. The old woman scurried back in the armchair, her frail body shrinking ever smaller in the fabric.

“Who are you?”

There was no reply from the old man as he choked back sobs.

“Who are you?!” The fragile voice demanded again to the man that was now foreign and eerie to her. She couldn’t understand why a strange man was standing in her room.

The door opened behind the pair as nurses and caretakers rushed in. Before the dementia patient and her husband could escalate to a new, wrenching heartbreak, they gently pulled them apart.