On our way to the car, I didn't make a sound. The sound of music slowly fading off from my ears, I tucked my hands into my pockets and picked up Abby's pace. She avoided my gaze, knowingly or not, but I was dying to know what was running in her mind. She is far out of your league.

Once I shut the driver's door, the noise was zoned out, leaving me occupied with Abby's loud breathing and my anxiety. This silence wasn't good. As if I could defeat it, I suddenly started speaking. "Did you like the girls?"

"They are not bad." I turned the key to turn on the car.

"I wasn't going to leave you but—"

"It's okay, George. I wanted you to spend time with your friends...and they weren't bad, as I said." Her replies were firm, her tone so cold like an ice queen. I hadn't really noticed her being so cold towards people until Brandon pointed it out today but why did I notice this kind of thing now? Especially when she should have been the warmest toward me.

However, I pretended the tension between us didn't exist, driving slowly and with my eyes fixated on the road. I threw out a breathy laugh, as if something was funny, and said the first thing on the top of my head. "Brandon will throw a huge party for his eighteenth in November, and he invited us." I stole a glance from her, but she was looking out of the window. "You can come at the weekend, maybe."

She hadn't answered that.

I squeezed the steering wheel to collect my patience. I wasn't going to ask her what was wrong. She'd tell me in the end. Maybe she was upset over her father or anything else. Not everything was about me. I didn't need to make a fuss.

"Or screw it," I said at last. "It's not that important."

She let out a sigh. I didn't understand whether she was done with my blabbering or she sensed my anxiety. Another silence followed since I gave up on trying to keep the cheer in the atmosphere when we were both so tense. I was tense because she was tense.

The silence becomes deafening when something crucial is about to come. In movies, the background music thickens and gets muted by the time the words are about to come out. I was looking straight on the road when that happened. I wasn't looking at Abby nor had I noticed that she was watching me intently as she spoke. "I can't do this," she whispered, but that was the only sound that I could hear. I can't do this.

I suddenly stepped on the brake, pulling the car to an abrupt halt. Not to cause any accidents, I decided to use the last bit of my energy to pull the car over. Her words ruined me in a heartbeat, sooner than I expected. I finally met her gaze and her eyes were full of tears. "I can't do long distance, George."

Despair clogged up my throat, blocking my voice for a while. If I were to say something, it would come off incoherent. She is far out of your league. Maybe that was true; maybe she was. I shook my head. We loved each other—wasn't it all that mattered?

"I understand." I couldn't believe that I sounded like I understood—it was far from that. I wanted to shout at her for giving up on us so easily. We didn't even try. She was literally cutting me off without trying. We would last, I knew that. How could she do that when she said she loved me? Was this love?

When her response never came, I lit a cigarette. I still rolled down the window and blew the smoke out, so she wouldn't mind. Fuck. She was talking about leaving me and all I cared about was if she was bothered by my smoking. Maybe the fault was mine. I had been living in a wonderland.

Outraged, I started the car again and drove off as fast as possible to arrive home. I fought my tears not to stream down because the last thing I wanted was to cry in front of Abby. I was going to make it easy for her. That sounded easy for her, as she managed to say it in one piece.

She hadn't uttered a word until I parked in her driveway. I waited for her to say something, or leave the car just like that, but she lingered, suddenly touching my hand. "I'll pack my stuff in my room. I'll be waiting for you." When I raised my gaze, she looked at me with a timid grin. I didn't answer her. I couldn't. I just watched her walk out of the car, so certain that I would go to her room tonight.

Well, I was going to her room tonight.

I entered the house without an announcement. I heard Mom ask if I was hungry in a distance, but I was climbing the stairs at a high pace and I reached my room in seconds. I only released a breath once I shut the door. Abby was leaving me. Leaving me.

My mind was a huge turmoil, plotting out every scenario and always, but always, ending up with a sad ending. I should have planned something to convince her otherwise, to make her believe that we were good for each other, that we were meant to be. However, the more I thought the more desperate I had felt under this pressure. Abby was destined to be good. She was probably going to be somewhere on the top in ten years and where would I be? I had no fucking idea. I was going to slow her down—if she was lucky. In the worst-case scenario, she was going to end up like me—with no plan, no aim, and therefore no success.

I could have held my tears, but the storm of disappointment hit me so hard that my eyes started to rain. I was disappointed in myself for doing this. I fucking believed in a fairytale that was never going to happen. Abby was so wise to let me go. For her sake.

After wiping the tears off my sleeve, I grabbed the mixtape from the shelf and walked out to head straight to her house. I didn't bother to check myself in the mirror, for whatever I would do, I was going to look like a wreck anyway. I was a wreck. By the time I was walking down the hall, my mother was up and watching me with worried eyes. "George," she called after me, but I didn't dare stop to explain because the time was ticking, and I was fighting against it.

The chilly air welcomed me, even in the heart of summer, when I was outside. It was late at night, but I wasn't in the right mindset to consider whether her family was asleep. I stepped on her porch and knocked on the door. As if she was waiting, the door immediately opened, and she pulled me inside. I could hear the muffled sound of the television in the background but when she took me directly upstairs, I didn't ask her about anything.

When she shut the door and turned the lights on, we were immured in her room. The outside world was temporarily out, just the two of us in present. My head was spinning, and my hands were shaking. I didn't think it would hit me so hard. If she rejected me at first, I wouldn't be feeling like this because once you have the sweet taste of heaven, losing becomes harsher because you fell in the first place. I plopped down on her bed and she silently sat beside me.

Abby cleared up her throat. Feeling like a coward to look at her eyes, I focused on my fingers, counting them over and over again, actually counting down seconds unconsciously. "You said you understand in the car," she started off, sounding balanced and collected. I didn't know how she could do that—sound intelligible, wise, and strong in a circumstance like this. Maybe she has never loved you as you loved her, my reason reminded me. "You don't understand, George." I huffed at that. Once she started talking again, she didn't sound like before. "You're thinking...that I didn't love you, right? I didn't care about you. You are wrong."

Then, I lifted my gaze to take her in. Her eyes were teary, and her voice was crackling. She was on the verge of crying. "I love you so much that I have to let you go. I can't risk you—us—for a relationship that is bound to fail."

"How do you know that?" I asked firmly. "How can you be so sure we are going to fail?"

"Because everyone walks away at some point." I didn't believe it. "Someday, when we are busy with our own lives and miles away from each other, you will run to someone else than me to tell about your problems because, at that point, I will be totally a stranger to you. I won't know who you are talking about. I will be missing your happy and sad moments. And that someone will make you feel special in a way that I can't."

"We can Facetime all the time. I will keep you updated, and you will keep me updated."

"I won't be there for you, George, not like I should be. You know the saying...out of sight, out of mind. That's going to happen. That's all I know—that's what happened when my mother passed away. Love isn't a constant; it's a variable."

I looked at her in disbelief. "You're comparing us to your parents? Your mother died, Abby, and that's totally different. I won't look at any girls like I look at you—I know, because I have been only having eyes for you as long as I know, you understand? If this is about infidelity, I trust you with all my heart and I haven't done anything unfaithful, either. I can't see it," I sighed. "I fucking can't see how this won't work out."

"It's not about infidelity. It's about distance—it's about shared memories. I have lost so many in my life, George, and I can't bear losing you, too. If that means I have to bury my heart for that, hell I will do it."

"So, you're saying you're giving up on a relationship that we didn't even try?"

"I don't know," she murmured, looking down. "All I know is...love hurts." Then, suddenly, she started sobbing. "I'm feeling so stupid for leading you on, but I couldn't stop that. I should have never told you I loved you back because leaving you is so hard, George. After knowing what can happen between us, this is the most difficult thing I've ever had to do."

I didn't expect her to break down, so I wrapped an arm around her waist and she leaned herself against my chest and wrapped her arms around me. I put a kiss on her forehead and, somewhere in between, started sobbing as well because it was literally the most difficult thing. Ever. Something in this equation didn't hold.

"I wish you were coming with me," she whispered against my neck. "Everything would be perfect." I just hugged her tighter, at a loss of words in this situation. Then, she suddenly pulled back, throwing me a look full of tears, and walked to her closet to put them in her luggage. I walked toward her, not bothering to wipe away my tears, and helped her fold the clothes and pack them into them.

"Take this sweater," I said. "New York will be much colder, and this is my favorite." She gazed at me with a soft smile, like a rainbow after the rain, and nodded. When we were done packing her clothes, she said she arranged most of her stuff. I pulled out the mixtape from my pocket and put it on the top of the pile.

Abby noticed my act and her gaze traveled from the tape up to my eyes. "Whenever you miss me, you can listen to this tape. Or you can burn it down if it makes you upset. Do whatever you want with it. It's yours."

Her gaze softened as her fingers grazed over my messy handwriting. "I don't deserve you, George Shaw." Before I could form a reply, she launched forward and pulled me for a kiss. Her hands cupped my cheeks as I snaked my arms around her securely.

When she kissed me, it felt like the last. I could taste the bitterness of her sadness, and helplessness, and I knew she was feeling mine. "I will never stop loving you."

"I wish you did," I whispered against her lips. We both cried then, kissed, hugged, and did them all leisurely as if the time had stopped but also hurriedly that the time had run out. At that moment, it made the same difference.

That night, I learned that love itself wasn't enough. Between black and white, there was gray, and life lay in those gray areas between birth and death. Life carried the surprise of a child, and the bitterness of an elderly—and somehow, both coexisted at once. One day, I thought against her lips, that I would remember this very moment, and do what?

That was the question.

***

Hi!

I remember this chapter being so hard to write because of the obvious content. After building their relationship brick by brick, it was so tough to destroy it. But life doesn't always work in the way we expect and I think this was bound to happen at some point.

They have different experiences and different views that make them act the way they do. Maybe George would have ditched this opportunity for Abby, but she wouldn't do it for him.

Sev xx