FicWad

I sat in my car for about twenty minutes, letting the Civic waste gas as I intermittently pressed on the accelerator. The engine revved, but the car went nowhere because I was parked. If I shifted gears, I could easily be out of there, and on to something else. I imagined it would be exciting, refreshing. Maybe a road trip would shake all the proverbial dust off my soul.
I held onto the wheel with hands that jittered. My stuff was in the back, my key was in the socket. There were no other vehicles on the road ahead. "Just go," I told myself. But I couldn't, not yet. Not without seeing Jay one last time.
He was still in the bathroom. There was no sound now coming from behind the door. I stood in the hall, unsure of what to do. "Jay?"
I twisted my lips and cleaned some crud out from under the nail of my thumb. "Jay, I'm leaving. I just wanted to say goodbye. And that I love you."
"Shut up," He snarled, his voice choked with tears. "Just leave, if you want to so goddamn much."
"I don't...want to, I have to."
"Why?"
He sounded like a child. Why didn't he understand?
"Because." I could write a thesis paper on "why". I could direct a trilogy of movies on "why". It wasn't so simple.
"But I don't want you to leave. That's why you think you should go, but it's not true. I love you."
"You shouldn't."
"Well, too fucking bad."
I pushed back the lump growing in my throat. "Don't make this so hard."
"I'm not making anything hard. You are. If you just stayed, we'd be fine."
"We're not fine. I...I'm a criminal, Jay."
"And I'm an adulterer. I never thought of leaving you, even though I should've. You're too good for me." He sounded as sorry as he did the day I forced myself on him. Now I was the one saying to shut up. "No," He raged. "I'm not going to. You think I don't understand, but it's you who doesn't understand. Do you really think that somehow, it didn't hurt me? Of course it fucking did. I hated you so much. I was close to killing you. I wanted to...I wanted to..." He gurgled something in frustration; I didn't understand what he said but I understand what he meant. "But I hated myself more. For not stopping you, and for thinking I had the right to stop you. You're...you're really something, you know? I've never spent more than a week on someone. I've never wanted to. But you're different, you know."
"You're different, too," I replied solemnly. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Then why...?"
"How can I keep living with you if I can't even live with myself?"

He tried to counter that argument. He fought, he pleaded. But we both knew it wouldn't change a thing.
"So is this for me?" He finally asked.
"I guess."
"It isn't just for me, is it? It's for you, too. You don't want to be with someone who can't fully love you. I swear...I never meant to hurt you. I just..." I couldn't see him, but I could tell he was shrugging. "I don't know. Maybe it's genetic. Maybe I'm just not meant for this, for this whole commitment thing. But I swear, I swear I've never wanted anyone so badly in my whole life. If you leave, what will happen to me?"
"You'll move on."
"How do you know that?"
"You'll have to. What the fuck are you going to do, pine after me forever?"
"If I said yes, will you still leave?"
My heart contracted at the amount of pain in Jay's words. It made me want to say no, but how could I lie to him?
"Jay, listen to me. I'm going. Don't try to call and find out where I went. I don't even know that yet. But I want you to remember that it's going to be fine. And you're going to find someone else. You're amazing, all right?"
He didn't respond. Those were stupid words to end a relationship on. 'You're amazing, all right?' But I didn't know what else to say. I wished he'd say something. I wanted to stall; maybe if I took long enough, I'd end up changing my own mind.
"Jay?" I knocked on the door. "Jay, you can't stay in there forever. Don't you want to see me one last time? Jay?" I twisted the handle; it was unlocked but it wouldn't budge. He was pressing all his weight against the wood. "You're really not going to even bother saying goodbye?"
"No."
My stomach knotted up. That sounded final to me.
"Okay," I said. "Bye."

I trudged back to my car and angrily got into the driver's seat. I clicked the seatbelt, turned the key. The car was ready to go. And, like it or not, so was I.