Chris watched from across the street as he tried to process his sight. It was HER. Not just an ex girlfriend with a new guy. That he could handle. But it was her. Standing there. With Him. It was more than he could bear, but he couldn't force himself to look away.

He was jostled around a little on the side walk of a crowded New York street, but he never lost sight of her. How could he? He had spent hours memorizing her face and hands and feet and smile and eyes and hair. Her laugh was permanently imprinted on his brain, and he heard it every time he laughed, despite her absence. Not that he laughed much anymore. He had to force himself. What was there to be happy about? She wasn't there to provide or receive or participate in that happiness, so there was no point.

Chris pulled his collar up against the chilled November wind as he watched the Happy Couple. It was his fault. He knew that. He wasn't going to blame it on anyone else. He knew he was at fault. The dinners missed, because he didn't feel 'up to it'. The late night phone calls, asking her to come see him. The late night phone calls when he 'just couldn't come see her'. The appearances at his side as a prize to be won, when he knew he felt about her more deeply than that.

He had loved her as he had never loved another, and as far as he was concerned, he never would. She was his world, and he had taken it for granted. He knew then that it was wrong, just as he knew now that it was wrong. He had spent too much of his life getting what he wanted. He was a spoiled brat. Sure he had worked for his position and his career, but he EXPECTED the other things in life. The adoration, the respect, the love and the commitment, when he himself was no longer willing to give anymore of himself than he had to.

He wanted to blame his lifestyle, his career, for the person he had become. He had gotten anything he wanted because of his fame. Now he knew that his fame and position in society couldn't get him the one thing he wanted more than the air he breathed. That woman standing across the street from him, looking at the cheap rings of a street side vendor, with her new love. In her new life. A life he could never be a part of.

He regretted it, and he wished with all of his being that he could have her back, for a second. To once again feel her lips on his and feel her in his arms. Even if he had to give up everything he had worked his life for, he knew he would for just one more minute with her, to tell her he was sorry. But it was too late now.

He hadn't expected to see her here, but it was fitting. This was the city where he realized it was over. The city where he knew she was already gone, before she uttered one word. It was at the hotel just down the street that it had happened. He knew that he had walked down this street for a reason. To relive the moments on this very street that he had had with her. They had walked here many times when he was in New York. She lived here, but she never tired of walking with him around the city when he could sneak away from security.

Those days were over now. She had a new guy in her life. She had a new happiness. She had a new life. She had what he had had once, if he had only been wise enough to realize it, if he had only opened his eyes.

Chris blinked his tears away. When he opened his eyes again, she was already gone. Just like that one day that would tear his heart forever, she was already gone. Into thin air, it seemed, she had disappeared into the crowds of the city. Just another face to them, but to him, the only face he would ever see when he closed his eyes. He could hear himself on that last day with her, when she had walked into his hotel room to 'talk'. He had known when he opened the door, and he had uttered the last words he would ever say to her, "You're already gone."