The wolfless wolf

Elle “Elle, Elle, wait up, you can’t just run away like this. We need to talk” Sebastian had a lot of words for someone who was so silent last week when I walked out on our 13 year relationship. Clearly me walking out and booking a flight to the states hadn’t made him realise I was serious about ending it- till now. Just a few months earlier I’d say him down, begging him to change. Begging him to be more romantic and show me how he felt about me. The answer was always ‘you’re over reacting, you know I love you, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.’ He changed, for a day, took me to my favourite restaurant before a game of bowling. He talked to me for hours, making jokes and flirting. It was like we were back to how we were as teenagers. Then we got home and it was back to arguing over who was to do the dishes, whose turn it was to do the ironing. Him going to training every night while I cooked his dinner patiently waiting for him to get home. Then last week I snapped, told Seb I couldn’t live my life like this any more and scolded him for wasting my time if he wasn’t interested. I told him he couldn’t love me if he had no idea on how to show it. Told him that I was sorry for staying with him for all these years as he deserved real love too. He deserved to find a woman who he loved enough to give her all the things I craved. He’d just sat there, completely silent with not a shred of emotion on his face. I don’t know what I was expecting, he’d hardly shown me any emotion in all them years, why start now? Then again it was the reason I was leaving. Fed up of feeling numb, cold and insignificant I’d spent the last of my savings on a flight and three months rent in Charlotte, NC. The plan was to find a job, get a working visa and hopefully put the last decade behind me. I deserved a guy who wanted to show me off to the world. Who would race home from work and say ‘hey babes how’s your day been?’ I craved a man who would shower me with love. I was excited for my fresh start, for the first time in forever I felt energised- free. “Elle please don’t leave like this, just 10 minutes. We need to speak, please?” He was never going to just leave was he. I could go through security now and leave without a second look or I could give him 10 minutes. The problem was if I gave him 10 minutes I may never leave. I’d wanted to leave so many times in the past but couldn’t do it. I loved him too much. He was my everything, but as time went on it felt more and more like I was nothing to him. A roommate, a comfortable companion, someone to split the bills and satisfy his occasional s****l needs. The only time he made me feel loved was when we were naked, but that was always short lived. Few kisses, a little foreplay, straight in and all over before the song on the radio could finish. “Elle, we can’t just end it like this. Please just one coffee and you’ll never hear from me again?” “Ok, one coffee.” He deserved 10 minutes after all I was the one leaving him. I wanted desperately nothing more that to run back into his arms and leave the airport with him. He’d said all the things I’d been wanting him to say for years, ‘he loved me, he’d do better to show it, he was just happy and content and hadn’t realised how little he was showing me” But what if he went back to his old ways the second we got home? My belongings were already on the plane. I needed a break, I needed him to really show me he’d changed. “Give me three months” I asked. “I’ll go to America, we’ll do long distance and see how it goes. I need to find myself without you. You can come visit and if at the end of the three months we still want to be together, I’ll come home” We’d been together so long I’d forgotten what my dreams were, what my personality was like and how I was without him. I scribbled down my new address, new phone number and kissed the only love I’d known in my life as if I would never kiss him again. “I love you, and I hope we can make this work.” Were the last words I said to him before I walked through security with tears streaming down my face. I’ll be ok I thought, I have to be. I’m in too deep now.