About the only thing they could agree on is that, despite their strong feelings for one another, they didn’t belong together. Too much drama.
So they parted ways and wished each other the best.
And they demonstrated their affection for each other every day by never speaking again. This, despite thinking of each other every day. Wrestling with the mixed emotions that come with wanting the best for someone while simultaneously missing them crazily. Deeply. Unlike they had missed anyone else that had ever left their lives.
Knowing that if one of them reached out, that the other would be just as happy to reconnect as they were, but also knowing in the long run, it’s not what’s best for either of them.
So they fought a daily battle to not speak.
Unbeknownst to either of them, although suspected at certain times or special days (birthdays, Valentine’s Day, St. Swithin’s Day to name a few), they both were doing the same dance. They both wanted the other to be happy and yet hated the idea that other could be happy without them (how could they?!).
They created scenarios and people to be jealous of (I mean… how could they?!). Ghosts that both provided them the comfort of knowing the other wasn’t alone as well as fictional figures to torment them in the middle of the night. They would try to convince themselves that if they both truly wanted the best for each other, that that would certainly meet the criteria for true love.
What could be more noble?
What could possibly be more romantic than what was playing out between their ears every day? The idea that between the brain and the heart sits a membrane and the two of them exist on top of it like a pair of water striders on the surface of a pond. The gravity of planet Earth, all 13 thousand, 170 billion trillion pounds of it, preventing them from escaping out into space and the surface tension and their hydrophobic legs stopping them from being sucked down into the depths.
Were they making terrible mistake staying apart? Would they ever find another person who would actually find the preceding paragraph wildly romantic?
Should they make some grand gesture and give it one final chance to work out? Hadn’t they earned it with all the aching and longing and staring up at the night sky and whatnot?
Then they would remember the actual time they spent together. It would all come rushing back (how could they?!).
So they continue to fight the daily battle not to speak.