She was about to get into the car. I would never see her again. So I had to say it. “ I love you!”

She turned around, tears still in her eyes from our goodbye just moments earlier. “ I can’t let you go, I love you so much and I always have! Please don’t go I’ll miss you. I’ll miss the way we take our morning walks together, I’ll miss the way you sigh when I make a joke telling me that it’s not funny but laugh anyways. A real laugh. I am going to miss the way we always greet each other at the fence with a hello neighbor pretending like we are complete strangers. And in that moment I can relive the very first time I laid my eyes on you and fell in love! Please don’t go.”

She didn’t say anything, she just stared into my hoping eyes.

“Im sorry, I have to go, but…” she paused thinking of the ways to say the next sentence, “I don’t want our last goodbye to be a lie so I am just going to say it, I don’t love you back. I’ve always thought of you as a part of my family but not as my husband but my brother, I’m sorry if that’s disappointing but I have to go.” And with that she got in the car and left.

I never saw her again.