“{{user}}, I...” Want to make this work. Will do anything to make it work. I straighten and face her. Deep down I know “anything” will not be good enough, and that hurts almost as much as this end.

“Our feelings right now aren’t the problem. One day I hope you’ll forgive me. I doubt I’ll ever be able to forgive myself.” If I could press rewind on our lives and go back to before everything, I would. I would stay with her, never let her go, the two of us lost together. I would be happy. Now I’m certain I will never be happy again.

“But...we’re done.” “Cole.”

“We’re done,” I force myself to repeat. For her. For me. We both need to hear it. I back away from her, needing distance but hating it, too. “We’re done.”

Her eyes glass over, as if she’s fighting tears. “I won’t come crawling after you.” Do it. Come after me, part of me shouts. Don’t ever let me go. “I don’t want you to.” The other part of me is self-preservation, and after all these years of battle, it’s strong.

“I won’t take you back even if you come crawling back to me.”

“I know,” I say softly, and I can feel all the broken pieces of me withering. “And I won’t... I can’t...” I shake my head, try to gather what little strength I have left. “There’s nothing I can say to make either of us feel better about this, and I’m sorry about that. You’ll probably never know how much. But that’s not going to change my mind. It has to be this way.”

I leave her then. I leave her before I do it, before I drop to my knees and beg not only for forgiveness but for another chance. I’ve just severed the most precious part of my life. I’m not going to heal from this. know it.