“Here at a crossroads, I’m sure of the path although I’ve never walked it before. It’s the one on the left. The one where I’ve left, I mean. You stay and I go and that’s the end of us. It’s been a long time and a good one, in many respects. So thank you for that. And actually, if you wanna make me the bad guy, you’re welcome to do that.

I’m okay with that, if that’s what needs to be. You see, I’m going through something of a metamorphosis lately, and it doesn’t really matter what you might think of me now. I’m in a state of change. And whatever the consequences, whatever hurt feelings come, it still means being able to move forward again. That’s how I feel. Like stagnant water that’s found a way to flow again.

You know as well as me, even if you don’t say it, that your heart belongs to someone else. If not fully, then at least inherently. All that’s left is a little piece for me, that you dress up with things like carrying my groceries to the car. If we were honest about the many ways love travels and manifests, maybe things could be different. But you choose to live in false ideals, in flimsy constructs of your own design. I happen to like myself a lot. And I happen to think I’m worth the world, even if I don’t always find myself in situations that reflect that.

So now, I’m ready to choose. That last fork in the road, when you started on one way and I made a move to head along the other, you didn’t reach out to grab me. You didn’t say anything. You would have just let me walk. Why do I blindly follow you? What makes a path of my choosing less important? It seems I always readily walk with anyone else, powering onward as though I’m their battery. I kind of want to see where I would make it on my own. And I guess I’ve given up, on this. Is that fuel enough for the journey alone? Maybe the power of choice is my guiding star.”

“Once you do this, you can never go back. You understand?”

“That much, I understand very well.”