One Light and My Last Chance.

“Ruthie. Are you awake?”

I rolled onto my side and peeled my eyelids open. I had to squint to make out Ellie’s shape in the dark. She was sitting in the recliner at the far end of the bedroom. I had expected to find her lying in bed next to me considering it was the middle of the night.

She reached out and turned on the lamp that was in the center of the nightstand next to her chair. It took me a few seconds to try to adjust to the sudden brightness. I blinked a few times, rubbed the grogginess out of my eyes, and then turned all of my attention onto Ellie.

She wasn’t in pajamas, but dressed in a pair of denim jeans and a hoodie from her alma mater. At her feet were two overly-full duffle bags. I grabbed my cellphone from the charger and checked the time. Four o’clock.

“Ellie, what’s going on?”

She refused to look at me. Her eyes were burning a hole into the rug. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I was searching for a clue, for an answer, for something that would tell me what was happening. The longer I waited to hear something, anything, the more anxious I became. I had this nagging feeling that something terrible had happened and she just didn’t know how to put it into words.

“What’s wrong?”

She turned to me, locking eyes with me for just a second. I expected to see tears or some sign that told me she was hurting, but I saw nothing. Empty. It was like I was looking at someone who was not even there. I didn’t even recognize this person sitting across the room from me.

“Ellie?”

She didn’t say a word, but stared back at me blankly. I felt my heart drop into my stomach. I knew something bad must have happened. Only a horrific accident could explain this sudden coldness, the distance that was widening between us with every single breath. I needed her to tell me what was going on. Clearly, she must be going somewhere. And one of those bags must be for me.

“Say something, Ellie. Please.”

Why couldn’t she say anything? What would be too difficult to tell me? Was she leaving? She couldn’t be. Could she? Was that why she couldn’t speak to me? Was that what was so difficult for her to say?

No. It couldn’t be. Just a few short hours ago I had asked her to marry me and she said yes. We were happy. We were the happiest we had ever been.

She couldn’t be leaving me. One of those bags has to be for me. It just had to.

“Ellie, please.”

“Ruthie. I can’t.”

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t do this”

“This?”

“Us.”

Her words slammed into me, knocking me off balance. But it wasn’t just what she said. It was how she said it. It felt like someone else was saying these things. Like they were coming from outside of herself. Her words felt stale and rehearsed. She didn’t even sound like herself.

“Six hours ago you were saying that this, that we were something you could do for the rest of your life. I just fucking proposed to you and you said yes. What the hell do you mean you can’t do this?”

“I know what I said. And I meant it or at least I thought I did. But then you went to sleep, and I got to thinking, and I don’t know. I guess I sort of talked myself out of it.”

“You didn’t even hesitate when I asked you to be my wife. You acted like it was a no brainer. You told me that I was the only one for you and that you could not imagine a life without me and that this was everything you had hoped for. You said that this was the easiest decision you have ever made in your life. What the fuck happened while I was asleep?”

“I know. I know. I don’t know what to say, Ruthie. I was caught up in the moment and was all in and I thought it was what I wanted, but the more I think about it, the less I can see it working out.”

“So you went from planning a future with me to suddenly realizing that us being married would not work out? What have we been doing for the last fucking decade! Not once have you ever been concerned about us. This was always the plan. Always. You and me together at the end of all of this. Why the fuck did you wait until tonight to say something? We could have figured this shit out years ago. Why are you trying to ruin this?”

“I didn’t feel like this three years ago or even three hours ago. I’m not trying to ruin us. I am just trying to be honest. I don’t know why I am feeling how I am feeling or where it is even coming from, but I can’t ignore it. That is not fair to either of us. I am just trying to do what it best for us.”

“So that’s that? Somehow this strange feeling that came out of nowhere that you can’t even explain is more important than every single moment we have spent together. Somehow that's the thing you're going to listen to instead of 10 years of love. You’re throwing this, us, me, all of it, away for some random ass unidentifiable feeling? What am I supposed to do with that?”

“I hope you can understand this one day.”

“Give me something to understand, Ellie. You don’t even understand what you’re doing right now, so how am I supposed to? You are not making any sense.”

She stood up from the chair and calmly twisted the diamond ring off of her finger. She placed it on the nightstand without even a second thought.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to run to her. I wanted to make her remember what we were. But whoever this person was, whoever I was talking to, was not my fiancé. This was someone else entirely.

I felt like I was floating outside of myself, watching this horrifying scene happen to someone else. This could not be happening. This could not be my life.

I watched as Ellie fiddled with her bags. She seemed to be moving almost in slow motion, taunting me, coaxing me to fight for her, like I had done so many times before. I was always the one pulling her back to me, back into this relationship. From the second we met, I was all in, ready for wherever this life would take us. But Ellie wasn’t. And she had been honest about that. She was more hesitant about our future and far less sure of us than I was. But deep down, I had always thought, or rather hoped, that if I loved her fiercely enough, she would love me back with every part of herself, too.

Someday.

“Ellie?”

“Ruthie?”

“Can you just answer one more thing? Why now?”

She put her bags down on the floor and turned to face me.

“I am just not ready for this. But I know that it is what you want. I wanted to give that to you, to give you everything you needed in this relationship to feel whole, and loved, and secure. But I can’t. I am not made for marriage, Ruthie. I am not made for you. I wanted us to fit, and I tried so hard to be whom and what you needed me to be, but it just isn’t who I am. I can’t do that for the rest of my life.”

“Can we just slow down? Please? Just stay. We can figure this out together. We were happy, Ellie. There is something here. We wouldn’t have been together for 10 years if there wasn’t anything here. We don’t have to be married or have kids or any of that. I just want to have you.”

“I can’t do that to you. I want you to have everything you want and you deserve that. And I deserve to have everything I want, too. I don’t think these are things you can compromise on without someone growing resentful of the other. That’s the last thing I want for either of us. I think me staying will just prolong the inevitable. Your proposal gave me an ultimatum and I know that was not your intention, but it is what it is. I had to make a decision and I decided that what is best for us is for us to not be an us any longer.”

“You don’t get to tell me what is best for me. I decided a long time ago that you were what was best for me and you made me feel like you thought I was what was best for you, too. If that is true, if you love me, you’ll stay.”

Ellie grabbed her duffel bags and headed for the door. She stopped just before stepping into the hallway.

This is where she turns around and snaps out of whatever trance she is in. This is the thing we will laugh about in 30 years when we are surrounded by our grandchildren and great grandchildren. This is the moment things go back to normal and we can move forward with the life we intended.

I waited for her to walk back to me. To say something. Anything.

But she did nothing.

She just stood there, perfectly still, staring at me. Then she turned and left without another word. That was goodbye. That was the ending of our relationship. Ten years summed up in a single moment, in the middle of the night.

I heard the front door slam shut and her car’s engine roar. It took every ounce of strength I had left to drag my body to the bedroom window. I watched as she pulled out of the driveway and turned onto the street. There was a stoplight just a few yards away.

Maybe it’d be a red light, or even a yellow light. I needed it to be something that would force Ellie to slow down long enough to remember what we were, what we had. I needed something to make her pause just long enough to doubt herself, to doubt her decision to leave. Maybe then she’d come back home.

This light was my last chance. It was the only thing that could get Ellie to stay.

This stoplight could change everything.

I watched her car approach the light. Green. I needed it to change. I had never believed in God, but in that moment, my first instinct was to pray. And I prayed with everything I had in me. I never once took my eyes off of the light. I prayed. I cried. I waited. I hoped. With every part of my soul, I hoped that light would change.

But it didn’t.

Ellie blew through it and never looked back. She never came home.

And me? I was never quite the same after that.