Would You Let Me Stay?

Him: Sorry, I’m going to have to leave a few of my things…

Me: That’s okay. After 8 years, you can think of me as a sort of storage unit.

Him: Believe me, I do.

Me: Wow. Thanks.

(pause)

Me: Hey.

Him: What?

Me: Are we doing the right thing here? Should we be turning our backs on 8 years of a relationship? Shouldn’t we be fighting harder to preserve this?

Him: Michael. We’ve been fighting. We fought. And then we stopped fighting. And we were still together. And we were unhappy for a long time.

Me: But – what about all those hugs? There were lots of hugs. And, now there won’t be any. And I’ll be all alone here.

Him: You’ll be fine.

Me: I wont! I’ll just be here. Alone. With your lazy ghost rattling around the place. It was hard enough to get you to clean up before you were just a memory.

Him: Stop it. You’re making it harder. We decided-

Me: GOOD. It should be hard. It should be hard to walk away from someone who you made a life with – a LIFE. That’s what we have here. We have a life together, and you want to walk away from it.

Him: This isn’t fair. You’re the one who broke up with me… I’m just doing what you asked me to do.

Me: But is this the best idea?

Him: It’s the best idea. Yes. We reached a point where we weren’t good for each other.

Me: But I lied.

Him: What?

Me: I lied. You asked me to tell you point blank, that I didn’t love you anymore, and I lied and said ‘I don’t love you anymore.’ I lied. I do. I don’t know how to stop.

Him: What? Why would you…?

Me: I felt like I was drowning and I felt like that for a long, long time. And I felt like the only way to throw myself a life preserver was to do this.

Him: This is unfair – and I’m getting impatient. Why should… We’re doing what’s best for both of us, and you’re not making it easy.

Me: It. Shouldn’t. Be. Easy.

(pause)

Me: Will you listen to a song I wrote for you?

(long pause)

Him: (exasperated) Fine…