It didn't exactly start with a 'we have to talk' but it was one of those conversations.
(A note for those seeking entertainment: If you can find it in the pain of others, look no further. Otherwise, you might be best skipping this one.)

Let me set the scene; Thursday last was my 18th birthday, and at this point I have been going out with my girlfriend since I was 15.

So it was the friday, and we've just come out of her best friends house (best friend backstory: he shares a birthday with me and they have been friends since they were less than a year old), and my dad is due to pick me up in about 2 minutes.

Thanks to my kean mans intuition I can tell my ladyfriend has been somewhat off with me for a while, so I ask "Is something wrong?"
"Yes," she replies. More information isn't very forthcoming, so I try again.
"Is it me?" I ask.
"Yes," she replies. Again, a distinct lack of clarification.
"What about me, exactly?" I ask.
"I don't want to say, I mean, it's just been your birthday." she answers.
"Yyeeesss... But, now you've said this much, if you don't tell me what I'll just be worrying over the worst, and, as you've just mentioned, it is my birthday, and I'd rather not have the worry." I say, rather eloquently, though I do say so myself.
"It's not that I don't love you, I just don't think I love you in the same way as I once did." she says. At this point we've pretty muched reached her front door, and my dad has just arrived to pick me up. Wonderful. Now, to be honest, I'm a bit shaken up at this point. It's not that I didn't realise things had been changing, it's more that if anyone had asked me, I would've told them that I thought the relationship was going to last at least until she started Uni, not this September but the September afterwards. Now I'm not even sure if we'll still be together at the end of the week. Whatever, the point is that I hugged her. She's about 5 foot nothing, and I'm just over 6 foot, and she was stood on her doorstep, giving her another few inches, so I just wrapped my arms around her, and held her tightly, and closely. During this hug, I have a supreme feeling of closeness, and oneness. Of content, and happyness, and all I want to do is hold on to her for the rest of my life. But my dad is there, and so we part.

That night, I slept at a friends house, and I didn't manage to get to sleep till around 4, and woke up at 7:20. I tell you this because of the significance of that 7:20. For me, going to sleep at 4 is nothing new, but I haven't woken up in the morning at 7:20 since I was in High School, and I haven't woken up at 7:20 on a saturday for probably more than a decade. Up until I fell asleep, and from the moment I woke up, the one thing in my head was my lady, our relationship, what I've been doing with her these last few years, how I've been treating her, etc, etc. This was particularly bad, becaue I was at a friends house. He, and a few other friends, were all lying between me and anything/anywhere else. If I'd been at home, I could've buried myself in a book and avoided reality that way. But no, I had to lay in a darkened front room, listening to a chorus of snores, and contemplating until someone woke up to talk to, a good three hours later. But I did manage to get a lot of thinking done.

Later on that day (yesterday, as I write this), I was having a barbecue to celebrate the aforementioned birthday. My lady came around, and when I had decided we had been social enough, I took her into the house and we sat on the stairs to talk. On the stairs the connection returns, and I am compelled to touch her face; she looks so perfect I can't resist, and I delicately stroke her cheek with the back of my hand... So soft. Some tears, expressed fears and reminiscence of the years later, she told me she thinks we should go on a break. I've never been a fan of breaks; I've always seen them as something created by the writers of Friends to entertain.

Naturally, I come up with a few viable alternatives; perhaps she'd see me less as a friend (she says she sees me as a friend) and more of a boyfriend if we spend less time acting as friends (say, playing computer games with each other, etc) and more time acting as boyfriend and girlfriend (say, by only seeing each other to go on dates, or when in the house together, talking more, as opposed to the games.), also, maybe if we started just seeing each other less, I mean currently we see each other 4 or 5 times a week, sometimes for pretty much all of the day at a time. Mayhap we should see each other just once or twice a week, and have a plan of what to do rather than just chilling out. She says she'll think about it.

I think I made considerable progress, that day. A few days back, even at the theatre on my birthday (aren't I posh), I'd place a hand on her bestokinged leg, and she's push it off, complaining of the tickling, and even for maybe a week or two, if we were to hold hands it was always because I had taken her hand in mine, but on saturday, as we sat around the bonfire and we whispered to each other of how sorry we were of the direction things were taking, she offered her hand to me, to hold.

Today, another day, another attempt to salvage my relationship, which has so suddenly (although, if I think about it, perhaps not so suddenly), started the process of being whipped away. I can't get through on the phone, so I log onto my instant messenger, and success! She is online. There follows an hour long conversation, where I tell her how the shock of possibly losing her has made me realise that in a way, I already have, and that that self same shock is what has rekindled the connection that I didn't realise was missing until it was back. I tell her I haven't been treating her as I should have been, and that I believe in our love for one another, and I believe we were meant to be. Too little, too late, it seems. By some cruel twist of fate our conversation is cut short as she finds her sister has been taken to hospital to be checked for appendicitis, and my lady is to go and visit her ill sister. On logging out of her instant messaging service, she tells me that if I still want to talk, I can text her, but there is a lot to think on, of how our relationship has been and how it will come to be.

Only one thing remains certain, it seems, and that is that no matter what happens now, we will remain friends.

Now ladies and gentleman, this story is drawing to a close, and I feel I must appologise for no exciting climax, and to this end I will, in the last sentence, make a small joke.

Until then, I ask only that you spare a thought for two young lovers, on the verge of losing what at least one of them believes to be true love. After writing this I will text her, but it is unlikely she will have an answer for me yet.

If this is the end, don't worry about me becoming an emo and sitting in the corner, slitting my wrists; I'm old enough now to realise that no matter how hard it seems, countless others have gone through this before me, and gotten over it. If it is to end, I will get over it. I just hope that it isn't the end.

For anyone interested in seeing an artists rendering of the lady in question; click here.

Length? She says that the connection may be gone, but the sensation is still amazing.

Edit: To everyone who's been gazzing me: Thank you all for your support in this difficult time in my life. Despite the fact I don't know who any of you are, I really appreciate the gesture.
(tero if I had a website, this is where I would plug it, Sun 22 Apr 2007, 18:44, Reply)