“It’s not like it used to be… you can’t mess around anymore. We can’t keep doing this. You know you don’t love me, and pretending you do is just going to hurt more.”
He shifted on his feet, hands shoved awkwardly in pockets, looking at the ground.
“If you don’t love me then we need to stop. If not for your sake, then for mine.” They reached out and touched his arm. “It hurts that you don’t love me like you love him, but I’m not going to hold on to you out of pettiness and jealousy.”
He fumbled for words, trying to find something, anything to say, to change their mind. To no avail, because there was nothing he could say they were wrong about. He knew he didn’t love them, at least, not properly. Not wholly. Not like he loved him.
They saw the resignation in his eyes, and simply smiled softly, clearly in pain, but doing their best to not show it. “See? You’re just… not meant for me. I’ll be okay.” They let go of his arm, and backed away a step. “I guess this is goodbye?”
His eyes flew open, and his head whipped up from where he had been staring at a very interesting brick in the sidewalk. He quickly scrambled for words: “No, no it doesn’t have to be goodbye. We can- we can still be friends right? You’re still important to me.”
Their eyes held all the sadness that their smile did not: “Yea, sure we can be friends.” They waved and turned to walk away. “See you tomorrow.”