Whatever direction we choose,

"Tommaso, I am here now, I am in front of you, and if you want, I will be here forever."

"I can't do this any longer. I loved you for years, Marla. I loved you in the darkest hours of your worst days; you could not love me in the brightest moments of my best days. Marla, I have learned there is more to my life than being in love with you. I will never be able to tell you how challenging this transformation has been. I was so in love with you for so many years; it had come to define me. Looking back, I realize that I was not sure what was real and what were dreams when it came to you. I was lost in love with you. You were ever-present. You were inside of me all the time. For so long, all I ever wanted was to feel your soft skin under my lips. Each time I looked at you, I would hold on to it all. I was filled with you. Everything about you had bled into me. I was addicted to you. You invaded and starred in my dreams nightly. Each night in dreams, you were more real than you were in real life. There were days I yearned to sleep to escape real life with you and return to the world of dreams where I would taste you, touch you, hold you. However, I would eventually wake. And then would come the night, when it is dark, but the darkest of nights could never turn off my thoughts; nothing could ever cancel my thoughts of you. That is why dreams exist, to give light to our darkest days. In dreams, everything is granted. Marla, in the Mansion of Dreams, I made love with you every night in every bedroom. I was lost. I would tell myself I needed to be in love with you so I could go on living. Now I have clarity. I have learned there is life in loving somebody other than you."

"There can also be life with me. I am ready to give my heart to you. I am ready to be all that you ever wanted me to be for you. Did you not tell me I was the only woman you ever really wanted? I feel so stupid. You were right in front of me all these years and I have just now come to realize what you wanted was to spend a life with me, and we would grow old together."

"No, Marla, what I always wanted was to spend a life with you and we would stay young together. For years, I wanted to just grab your hand and go, I believed whatever direction we would go, we would find ourselves in Paradise. We are in our fifties now. Our time has passed. I have let go of the Marla dream, finally. Although I will always love you, there are no more holes to punch on our dance card. When the music stops, it is time to leave the dance floor. For you and me, the music has stopped.

Marla, you did not come back to Paris to give yourself to me. You returned to Paris because you panicked. You are falling, and you realized I was not there to catch you, and I will not catch you this time. This time, you need to stop yourself from falling. The way to do that is to stop running from the problems you create. I love you, Marla. Not catching you this time will ultimately prove to be my greatest gift to you.