When they got home from dinner the weekend the hurricane missed, he said he didn't know what to do. He couldn't move forward. He thought they should move on. He started crying. Not for himself, for her. He'd rescued her from her lousy life, and now he was throwing her back. He felt like a shit for doing it, for things having to be that way, for not being able to give her what she wanted. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her.
The only part that wasn't in the manual was her response: She started to laugh. "Oh, give me a break," she said.
"I know you're really in love with me," he said.
"You think I'm really in love with you," she said.
"I know you are."
"Do you?" "Yes."
"Well," she said, "I'm not."
"This is me," he said. "You don't have to lie."
"I'm not. How can I be in love with you if you're not in love with me? That's one of the rules. Don't break the rules."
She went into the bathroom and took off her contact lenses. This will be the last time I spend the night in this house, she thought. When she came back out, he said, "I didn't want it to be this way."
"Yes, you did," she said, "because it is."
"I just want to be with someone normal," he said. "I just want to have a normal life." "Excuse me," she said.
"You're a little crazy," he said. "%u're too old to act the way you do. A bu've got to grow up. You've got to take care of yourself. I'm afraid for you. You can't think that people are going to take care of you all the time." "So what?" she said.
"You can't act like you're twelve," he said. "You can't come home at four in the morning."
"Most twelve-year-olds don't come home at four in the morning."
"You know what I mean. I can't take it. No normal man can take it. What are you always doing out until four in the morning?"
"Talking," she screamed. "Talking to my friends. Talking to people who have something to say."
Silence.
"Don't worry about it," she said. "Don't get your knickers in a twist. We both served a purpose for each other and now it's over. That's the way relationships are. Think of it as a learning experience."
"I don't believe that," he said. "I believe in real love."
Then she thought: Maybe she didn't have all the information.