I step into my small one-bedroom apartment and immediately I'm hit with the musky smell of marijuana. Empty beer cans are scattered around the area and a half-empty bottle of vodka sits on the coffee table in the center of the room.

Suddenly Nate comes out of our bedroom in a hurry, one bag thrown over his left shoulder and an even larger one dragging on the floor behind him. He looks frantic while his body shifts around as if he is in search of something.

I push the door shut with force, allowing the sound of it to gain his full attention and causing his body to go rigid.

“You going somewhere?” I ask as I do my best to maintain the irritation flooding my body.

I already know he is fleeing. When things go sour, this is Nate’s way of coping with just about everything lately. What I want to know is if he even planned on telling me this time.

“Blair.” The tension within him from only seconds ago fades and once again he is on the move. “Babe, I gotta get out of here.”

“Where to this time? And what brought this on?”

I’m over this. We’ve been so far apart over the last few months that I feel like we’re on two different sides of the country. He’s spiraling out of control, and I’m working hard to pay the bills and support us both. His bad habits are growing, only furthering the distance between us. I should have cut him loose long ago, but I guess I’ve been holding out for the sweet guy I once knew to show his face again. The guy who at one point told me that all he needed to be happy in this lifetime was his beautiful girl by his side. Me, of course, being that beautiful girl.

Now, I don’t know if he even looks at me like that anymore. On the rare occasions we have been intimate, I’m not even sure he was coherent enough to comprehend it was me and not just a random warm body, which leads to the reason why it’s been a long time since he and I have shared no more than maybe a kiss. There was no way I would risk my health by attracting some unwanted disease from a guy who was so far gone in drugs and alcohol that he didn’t give a shit who he fucked. I was the dumb girl who felt that somehow, by holding on even just a little, I’d be able to save him from the darkness in which he’s been living.

But it’s become clear that no amount of understanding will bring him back; the Nate I once knew is gone.

“Listen, I don’t have time to go through all the details right now—”

“But you have time to pack your shit and hurry off like some thief in the night, as if ditching the girl you’ve spent the last two and a half years with means absolutely nothing to you.” I can feel the anger inside me growing as I go on a rambling spree.

He ignores my irritation and reaches beneath the couch to pull out a plastic bag. It is full, of what I can’t tell. “I’ll explain, but right now I really need to get out of here, B.”

“What is that?” I reach out to grab the bag from him, but he jerks his arm away in a hurry and in the process, hits my cheek with more force than I expect. The sting floods me and in reaction, I shove against his chest with every bit of strength I have.

“Damn it, Blair.” You’d think he’d apologize or hell, even ask if I was okay, but instead he hurries off toward the door, acting as if I’m in his way and got what was coming to me. “I’ll call you when I figure things out. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“Don’t,” I say without turning to look behind me, “call or come back. Just go away.” I don’t want to see his face void of any true emotions. I know already he’s empty inside. Emotionally, Nate checked out on me long ago. The stupid girl in me, the one who dreamed of the guy she’d once loved so deeply, broke a little more inside.

He hadn’t always been this man. Before he got wrapped up with the wrong kind of people, he really was a good guy. He was great, even, treating me better than I had ever imagined, but that felt like a lifetime ago. The distance and angry words we’ve shared now cloud all those sweet times of our past.

A few silent seconds pass, then I hear the click of the door as he walks out and closes it behind him. Though I’m angry, I still feel saddened by the fact he can so easily choose the crazy life he leads over what we once had. The idea that I mean so little to him is hard to accept.

I’m left with no other choice but to forget Nate Gilroy and anything we could have become.