The breakup

The blue minivan parked outside the gate.  Unable to see beyond the black iron bars, the small cottage hid behind the hill.  Up in the grayish sky, no birds flew; their feathers unable to withstand the hollowing wind.   The air, heavy from impending rain warned every living creature to find shelter.  The now yellow grass looked up with a desperate thirst for water as the long, hot summer had supplied the area with about as much rain as the desert.  

Inside the van, two college students sat in silence.  This wasn't how their relationship was supposed to end.  Actually, their relationship was never supposed to end but the events of this afternoon were two difficult to ignore.  Still, pressing the small button to open the gate to drop her off for the last time seemed almost impossible.  Within the car, the dense quiet that had grown louder on the drive home now screamed with anger, disappointment, and pain

Looking at her now, she seemed to look entirely different than the girl who he fell in love with on the snowy evening two years ago.  Her green eyes had sparkled under her snowflake sprinkled auburn hair and her beautiful smile took him by surprise.  It was her who had fallen first and he had asked her to walk with him so he could attempt to explain why he didn't think it would workout between them.  But somehow, as he tried to speak the words he realized that he couldn't let her go and that he was spending all his time trying to deny his real feelings.  After that evening, she had written him a letter using her favorite peacock feathered quill saying how it was the best night of her life when he asked her to be his girlfriend.

From that point they had been inseparable both in and out of school but all of those memories just seemed so far away right now.  Confusion was mainly responsible for his silence.   He had been contemplating proposing to her spending hours trying to think about just the right way to ask her to be his fiance.  How did everything change so quickly?  As the moments ticked by he struggle with what to say.  She was waiting for him to say something tears slowly trickled down her cheek as she sat just a few inches from him.  Even crying she was still beautiful but his feelings were now the complete opposite of what they were before.  

Her desperate apologies didn't make him feel any better.  Even if she apologized a million of times or wrote a million letters on that same parchment as her original couldn't remove the knowledge that she betrayed him.  Trust is something that is so easily broken and so difficult to repair.  Did he even want to try and repair it?  No, this was the final straw.  He could never look at her the same way.   Not now.  It was just too much.  Still without saying a single word, he pressed the button and the large gate opened.  

Her sobs seemed to get louder.  She knew exactly what he knew.  It's not fair that she gets to cry; he didn't do this to her.  Arriving at her cottage, he reached up and unclipped the gate opening button and handed it back to her.  "Please don't end it," she whimpered.   "It's only made me realize that I want to work on us."   He shook his head.  If there were problems, he wasn't even entirely aware of them.  Sure they had fought a bit but they had done that before.  No, she should have talked to him.   He didn't want it to end either but he couldn't allow it to continue.  

"I can't do it.  I can't love you anymore.  I'm sorry."  He said quietly as he looked into her eyes full of regret and fear.  His voice felt strange, even to him.  Pain made him sound gruff and cold.  He wanted to tell her that he did still love her.  He knew he was hurting her and that was something he never wanted to do.  Still, the words stuck in his throat.  Telling her would only give her a reason to hope and make his leaving only that much more difficult.  

Hearing her take a deep breath, her tears stopped.  Her eyes hardened a bit and after a few more silent moments she muttered, "I guess this is it then."  When he didn't say anything and just nodded, she grabbed her bag, struggled with opening the door, and ran into the house without looking back.   It all happened so quickly  that for a moment he wondered if he had made the right choice.  Numbness overtook him as he put the car into reverse and turned around in her long driveway.  Outside the parched blades of grass waited for the downpour of rain, but it never seemed to come.  Instead all that was heard was the creaking and scratching of the gate as it slowly closed behind him.