JC collapsed on the couch.  This was the fifth fight he’d had with his girlfriend Leann this week.  Usually it was minor things, about whose turn it was to take out the garbage or something like that.  This one was just a big wad of icing on a heavily layered cake.  Though it had just ended, it replayed over and over in his mind like a broken record.

“JC you promised me you’d have dinner with my parents tomorrow!”

“I know honey, but I have photoshoot for my new album tomorrow.  It’s supposed to go late and you know I can’t get out of this.”

“Is that where your priorities lie?”

“Leann…”

“No, I’ve had enough.  It’s always work this, work that! I’m sick of it JC! I can’t be with you anymore if all I am is your mistress to your work.”

 With that, she had stormed upstairs, loaded a suitcase full of clothes, and left.

JC looked over to the picture on the mantle.  It was of him and Leann from about a year ago, with large smiles on their faces.  What he would give to be like that again.  Happy.  Now the couple seemed so distant from each other, even when they weren’t bickering.  Where they once cuddled close in the night, they now slept on opposite ends of the bed, never daring to touch each other.  Where they once shared breakfast time chatting over nothing, now they grabbed a cup of coffee and were out the door.  Where they once were inseparable, they now spent most of their time avoiding each other.

There was a time when JC swore he was going to spend the rest of his life with Leann.  Actually, he still thought that.  The picture just wasn’t as rosy as before.

But for all the distance between them, JC knew that no one understood him as well as Leann did.  To him, she was still just as beautiful as the day he met her.  He would never find anyone better, for he loved her more than he had ever loved in his life.  It was a simple fact that they were meant to be together.

While he was concealing that, she was denying it.  JC had mixed up his priorities, there was no doubt about that.  But to Leann, all the love they had one had was now lost.  She wished they could just go back to the ways things were when she first moved in with him.  That state of bliss was not something she had bargained on giving up.  Sure she still loved him.  He knew that.  But he didn’t know about how she cried herself to sleep every time they had a fight.  About how she longed for his touch, even though she pushed herself away.

So there she sat in front of her parent’s house, wondering what to tell them.  Was it over?  She was tired of the hurt, but was the hurt going to go away by ending it with him?  Too much thinking.  She went inside to do the one thing she felt would work right then: numb herself.

        The house felt so empty without her.  It had only been one night that she was gone, but it didn’t seem to matter.  Without her there, it didn’t feel like he belonged either.  His heart felt hollow.  Devoid of all the memories of past years, good and bad.  There was only one thing that could make him feel whole again: Leann. 

Last night had been a mistake.  The past couple months had been a mistake.  He needed to fix things before he ruined them both.  He needed to get things back to the way they should have always been.