Notes: The title belongs to Rob Thomas.
_____________________
Last night he whispered �I love you� in her ear, and that was when she knew it would be over by the weekend.
Because that�s how she is, and how she has been for years, and undoubtedly how she will always be. There had been a time when she had believed in fairy tale love, like every little girl does, and there had even been a time when she had lived it, but that time had been short and sweet and over before she even had a chance to truly experience it.
So this morning she had woken up and dressed, and left him with nothing but a note and the scent of her lingering on his pillow.
She wouldn�t miss him.
She didn�t miss any of them, and she would stop occasionally and wonder if that was strange. And then she would quickly decide that she didn�t care. There was nothing to miss, really. Nothing but the sex, and that was easily replaceable, as she so often proved.
Most of the time, she tried not to think of herself as bitter, or cold. Sometimes it even worked.
It had been that smile that had broken her in the end. His tears had been painful, and the memory of them still stung her, but when she remembered the tiny smile he had turned on her as he left the room, left her lying there on the sheets still tangled from their first and last night together, she was lost.
It wasn�t supposed to end like this. The future was not supposed to find her sneaking out of nameless dingy apartments in the weak light of morning, leaving behind a faceless man and the last tatters of her dignity. But this was what she had become, in the aftermath of him, and she knew that the blame was not entirely his.
The rift had started sometime in the last few years of their relationship, and had grown until it was an impassible gulf between them. It had been a mistake, she knew now, to try to escape the distance between them the way they had, but in the hectic elation of that night, it had seemed their only option.
The night had been a scene out of her dreams, or possibly his. It didn�t matter, really, because in those last few months their dreams had converged and become one, even as their hearts and futures drew irreversibly apart. They had sat together on the couch, hands clasped tightly between them as they watched the votes rolling in, and when the room exploded with the news of their victory, neither of them had been surprised as their lips met in brief and dazzling celebration.
They had made it through the congratulations, and the endless parties, and by the time they closed her hotel room door behind them, his kisses tasted like champagne and nine years of desire. By that point there was no turning back, and she found that she didn�t want to, even as she realized that it suddenly meant nothing to her.
Somewhere along the way, she had fallen out of love, and she hadn�t even noticed.
So she lost herself in the feel of his skin beneath her fingers, and the soft brush his breath on her throat, and when she cried out his name, and she heard his voice mingling with hers, she thought for the briefest second that maybe, maybe someday�
But as she drifted off to sleep in his arms, she could feel her own lies pressing in on her, on them, and she prayed that he was asleep, so he couldn�t feel the hot sting of her tears dripping onto his chest.
When she woke in the morning, her first thought had been to run, and that was when she knew, finally knew with the conviction that can only come with utter hopelessness, that it was over, as soon as it had begun. She lifted her head to find him already awake, and he had closed his eyes as she looked at him, and reached out a hand to brush his fingers through her hair, seeming to cling to her and push her away all at once.
There were so few times in their relationship when no words were needed, and looking back, she would often find it fitting that the last moment was one of them.
Their eyes spoke for them as he rose from under her and dressed, and the unspoken words brought tears to both their eyes. Before he made his way to the door, he came to her one last time, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking her in his arms. He wept into her shoulder, and she felt in his tears how much he had loved her, and the pain he felt in losing that, losing her.
At the door, he had paused, and turned, and given her that lopsided smile, the smile that had made her fall in love with him, and the sadness in it had broken her heart.
She no longer believed in love.
She had gathered what little remained of her life once he was gone from it, and she had made a new life for herself in a new city. She didn�t look for love, not anymore, because she had known it and lost it, and had no desire to go through that pain again. She lived without strings, without attachments, and she pretended not to notice that the loneliness was slowly killing her.
This morning she left the nameless man in his unmemorable apartment, and she watched the sun rise over the river, pretending not to notice the thought that tugged at a tiny corner of her mind.
The thought that someday she would find him again, and he would whisper �I love you� in her ear, and that would be when she would know it was forever.