I stood in front of Kylie’s door with Sawyer’s words hanging over my head. It had been two days since I’d spoken with him, and I couldn’t get what he had said out of my mind. I didn’t know how long I had been standing there. I didn’t know how this conversation was going to progress. But after everything Kylie and I had been through over the past four years and after everything she had supported me in, the least I owed her was the truth.

So, I lifted my hand and knocked on her door.

She opened it promptly, and I found her inundated with boxes. Cardboard boxes were everywhere and little sticky notes were on her furniture. I saw the names of several donation places written on them, and I sighed. She looked up at me with a less-than-pleased look in her eyes, and part of me wondered if we could have this conversation on the porch.

Anything to not stare at those damn moving boxes.

“You knocked?” she asked.

“Could I come in?” I asked.

She stepped to the side and ushered me in before slamming the door behind me. I watched her move to the kitchen and continue pulling things out of her small cabinets. She wrapped items up in newspaper and set them down in a box she had on the counter. Plates and mugs and silverware, all wrapped up individually and meticulously, went in.

It was just like my Kylie.

“Do you even want to move in with me, Adam?”

Her voice ripped me from my trance, and I found her staring at me. Her fingers were no longer wrapping items and her arms were no longer lifting to pull things out of her cabinets. Her eyes were no longer angry and her stance was no longer rigid. She looked tired, worn, like she hadn’t slept in weeks.

I’d done this to her.

I’d done this to the woman I claimed to love.

“I don’t,” I said.

If I didn’t know any better, I could’ve sworn I saw something akin to relief wash over her face.

“Then why in the world did you come to my apartment and tell me you did if you didn’t really want to?” Kylie asked.

I swallowed thickly, knowing that my truthful answers could very well be the last words I ever spoke to her.

“Because I thought if I compromised and moved in with you, it would give us some time to figure everything else out.”

“So you thought that by giving me hope for our future that I would stop talking about our future.”

I sighed as I nodded my head.

“Adam Tucker, you really are a piece of work,” Kylie said. “What in the world am I supposed to do now? I’ve already given my notice. Adam, I’m packing up my shit.”

“You said so yourself the other day—you can afford the apartment with or without me. So, move in. You love the place. I saw your eyes light up at that view. Take it.”

“I can’t take it. Your father paid the deposit,” she said.

“And you don’t have to worry about it. I’ll pay it back. Knowing him, he took it out of my trust fund or something.”

“Which you never told me you still had by the way.”

“Why? Does having money matter to you?”

“If you even begin to equate me to your mother, this will be the last time you see me,” she said.

I drew in a deep breath and tried to calm the quick swell of emotions I was experiencing.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I… It…it doesn’t matter. I can’t move in with you, Kylie.”

“I already got that,” she said flatly.

“But you can move in, and without worrying where that deposit or first month’s rent came from. It’s fine.”

“Does this mean we’re breaking up?” she asked.

“Why in the world does my not moving in with you mean we’re breaking up? I just don’t want to live with you, Kylie.”

“So you want to fuck me but not make any sort of a commitment one way or the other.”

“Believe it or not, it is possible for two people to be dedicated to each other without moving in, getting married, or having kids.”

“And believe it or not, there are women out there who want that kind of thing for their lives. So I’ll ask you again: Does this mean we’re breaking up, Adam?”

I sighed and shook my head as I gnawed on the inside of my cheek.

“I don’t know, Kylie. I don’t know much of anything anymore. For the past three and a half years—even more than that—we’ve been fine. Things were perfect. And now they’re shit, Kylie.”

“You think?” she asked.

“And I’m confused about how I’m feeling.”

“You think?” she asked.

“Don’t do the attitude thing. Please? Can we just talk?”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me we have a future together! I want to know that I haven’t wasted the last four years of my life with a man who led me to believe he wanted the same things I did!”

“I never told you I wanted kids or a house, Kylie!”

“But you sure as hell didn’t pipe up about it when I went on and on about how I wanted those things!”

“So it’s my fault you made faulty assumptions?” I asked.

“It depends. Have I spent the past four years with a man who allowed me to make faulty assumptions?”

I raked my hands down my face and groaned.

“You’ve been so weird lately,” Kylie said. “Ever since I took this job and graduated from college, you’ve been weird. And I think I know why.”

“Then enlighten me.”

“You’re used to routine.”

“What? I hate routine, Kylie.”

“You’re spontaneous, but that doesn’t mean you don’t live by a routine. For the past four years, we operated on the same schedule. I had classes during the same times, so we had our breaks at the same points during the day. Then the weekends were saved for your spontaneity. Routine during the week, the weekend for spontaneity. And I think you convinced yourself that it was a compromise. I had a routine to follow weekly, so we worked me in when you could. Then the weekends were centered around you and your ability to unleash your romantic creativity.”

“That’s exactly what it was.”

“Except now that routine is gone. I’m not in school anymore. We don’t have that same schedule anymore. And you’re running around like a chicken with your head cut off.”

“Because you took a job without asking me how I felt about you working for my dad!”

“No,” she said plainly. “Because it solidified a change in my life that directly affected how you ran your schedule, how you planned your filming times, how you moved your scenes around our designated coffee and lunch dates.”

“I—you can’t… Do you really think…?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the kitchen counter while I scrambled for words to fight her. She couldn’t possibly be right. I was a film director. I owned my own production studio. I was a creative mastermind. I flew by the seat of my pants and followed my muse wherever it went. I didn’t flourish in routine. No artistic mind did.

“Just tell me I’m wrong,” Kylie said. “Just form the words to say that. Form the words to argue against me, because you’ve been really good at it lately.”

But I couldn’t.

Yet again, I couldn’t.

“Look, I’ve been thinking a lot about my life and the path I’m on and where it’s taking me, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

“I know you don’t,” Kylie said.

“I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

I couldn’t believe I was about to say what was sitting on the tip of my tongue.

“But, I think maybe we aren’t on the same path any longer.”

The silence that hung thick between us choked off my air supply. Kylie’s eyes leveled with mine, and a fire flared behind them that I’d never seen before. Her arms slowly slid from her chest and hung at her sides. Then she pushed herself off the counter and took a step toward me.

“What?” she asked.

“I want you to be happy, and I don’t think I can be the person who will make you happy any longer.”

“What?!” she asked.

“I think I’m breaking up with you.”

“You think? You think?! You can’t even properly break up with me, you’re that confused?”

She took another step toward me, and for the first time in my life, I backed away from her. The motion seemed to slap her across the cheek. It jolted her back from the anger simmering in her eyes. Tears flooded her vision and I wanted to run to her, to take her in my arms and hold her close and tell her I didn’t mean it. Anything to keep her from being angry. Anything to keep me from losing the one woman in my life I’d opened myself up to completely after my mother had decimated my world.

“Get out,” she said.

“Kylie, I’m sorry—”

“Get out!” she shrieked.

I winced at the sound as I backed up toward the door.

“I really do love you.”

“You can go swallow those words and choke on them, Adam Tucker.”

“I could never regret the time we spent together.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she backtracked toward the cardboard box. I watched her dip her hand into it and then raced for the door. My heart thundered in my chest as I ripped it open. Her cry of pain and hurt echoed off the corners of my mind as I ran into the hall, closing the door behind me. I heard something shatter against the door before Kylie let out a piercing cry—one that pinpointed the exact second her heart shattered as it fell against the floor.

I leaned my forehead against her door and sighed, listening as the woman I’d spent the past four years of my life with sobbed in the middle of her apartment.