We head north on the interstate. The radio is on, playing something classical, but neither of us is really listening. He keeps his eyes on the road; I look out the window without paying much attention to what I'm seeing. We don't talk, nor do we brush hands like we usually do when we're in the car. I'm afraid I'll start to weep if I so much as open my mouth.

   Or worse, that I'll make him weep.

   Midsummer Eve.

   We drove to one of the massive suburban parks that circle the larger metropolitan area to the north like a long emerald necklace. Like any other park, it's closed to the public after dark, and patrolled, which is why he parked the car in a parking lot about a half a mile away from the park entrance we accessed, and why we've been walking in shadows to our destination, a formation of three hundred-million-year-old ledges and boulders that overlook a lake.

   When we reach them, I look up in awe. The boulders are huge – some of the rocks are the size of small houses. They're dwarfed by the ledges themselves, which soar above the trees.

   He says quietly, "This used to be an ocean bed. These sandstone ledges used to be mud and silt; when the ocean dried up, the stone was lashed by wind until the boulders and ledges you see here were made. The rock formations, made of conglomerate sandstone, a soft and brittle rock if ever there was one, then somehow managed to survive multiple ice ages, and glaciers three miles high and as wide as the continent they covered, glaciers that flattened the terrain and left not just till behind when they melted, but also deep grooves in the earth, and a series of massive lakes. These rocks and ledges remained through it all. It puts a certain perspective on things, doesn't it? Eromene, are you certain you want to do this?"

   "Yes."

   "What we do will be permanent. These are not just vows. We are binding our souls together."

   "My Erastes, our souls are already bound."

   "They will be more so, after this."

   I don't see how that could even be possible. How could the two of us be more knotted and interwoven than we already are? I smile and swallow past the lump in my throat. "I accept. This is what I want, my love. I think it's what I've always wanted. I'm tired of running. I thought we had this discussion."

   "We need to be certain. There will be no undoing what we do. Not in this life, nor in what is to come. It will be forever. You are certain, then, that this is your Will?"

   "Yes."

   He falls silent for a moment. "It is mine, too. For a number of reasons, I do not think this is sensible or logical on our part, nor do I think it even remotely wise, but it does feel right, and inevitable, and I believe that, not common sense or rationality, is what operates here, and what aligns our Wills. And may all that Is witness our intent. Well, then. Let us move on."

   We begin to pick our way uphill, weaving our way through stone and trees, finding a path that will take us to the top. It's a good thing the waning moon is still a few days away from being new. The ground looks treacherous.

   Eventually, we scramble to a high spot and find a good place to lay down the blanket. It's surrounded by just enough scrub brush and sapling trees that we don't stand out in silhouette to the casual eye, so if there is a park ranger or a police officer on patrol, we probably won't be spotted; meanwhile, our location is just exposed enough to the air that when we look up, we get a good view of the moon's crescent, and what stars we can see through ambient light. We're too close to the city to see much more than the brightest heavenly bodies.

   My book bag has been temporarily converted into a picnic carrier. After the blanket come the teacups, which are from a Japanese tea set and hold about half as much liquid as their Western equivalents, and have the virtue of being sturdier than the antique shot glasses we use for drinking absinthe when we're at home, or any other kinds of receptacles made from glass; a box of sugar cubes; a slotted silver spoon; and our bottle of homemade absinthe, which after two years still has several shots left in it, because we only bring it out for our magickal workings which rely on heightened concentration and awareness – guided visualizations, dream work, scrying, seeking conversations with our higher Selves.

   And now, performing a Hieros Gamos. Our personal circumstances couldn't be more in conflict with what we are about to do. Our souls, however, disagree with our personal circumstances.

   I think we could have skipped the spoon, the sugar cubes, and the fancy teacups, and just made do with a thermos with some absinthe and simple syrup mixed into it, but he likes the quasi-ceremonial trappings of absinthe served the Victorian way. It must be the romantic in him.

   Silently, I watch him put a sugar cube onto the spoon and pour absinthe over it, letting the resulting mixture drip into one of the teacups. The dripping becomes a pouring as the sugar cube eventually dissolves.

   "There," he says, "that's yours," then repeats the process.

   When he is done, he lifts his cup, and we drink to each other.

   I cast the circle myself when we have both drained the cups. It's more practical this way; we're outside, in a public park, and all the trappings he'd be using if he was the one setting it up would have been cumbersome. Now that my magickal training has been completed, I am no longer under silence, but I keep my silence anyway. It's still how I focus my energy.

   I walk slowly, stopping at each cardinal point as I invoke the elements; when I call Air from the east, a slight breeze kicks up, bringing a welcome chill to the hot summer night.

   Fireflies dance in the distance.

   Heat lightning flashes.

   He reaches for me, and I ground the energy through him, palm to palm, lip to lip, feeling the ancient sediments of the ledge holding us fast. We are two, in the process of becoming one: man to woman, Shakta to Shakti, heaven to earth, priest to priest, god to goddess. Soul to soul, self to self.

   Will to Will.

   Our hands begin unfastening each other's clothing. It doesn't take long; soon we are naked to each other and to the flaring night sky, our flesh warm and electric as we move over each other, caressing all the places we know so well in each other and never tire of rediscovering.

   He kneels and covers my genitals with his mouth, flicking me with his tongue. I gasp but manage to avoid making any actual noise. Just. Even after four and a half years of practicing silence in a cast circle, it seems almost more than I can bear to keep my voice inside myself.

   His tongue is so sweet, so gentle.

   Eventually, my climax overtakes me; my knees collapse, and I find myself trembling against him, grinding my pelvis into his mouth and tongue, held up only by the strength in his arms. A strangled noise escapes me.

   When I open my eyes and look down, I see him smiling one of his rare softer smiles.

   He lets me down slowly – it's the only way I can move at all, short of falling onto the ground, my knees are still shaking so hard that they don't support my weight – and onto his lap. I almost cry out as I feel myself impaled on him, and instinctively start to writhe back and forth, my breath hot against his shoulder.

    "Hush. Stop," he whispers. "Or it will be over before we've begun to weave our souls. Focus on me. Breathe with me. Focus your energy on mine and be still while I braid. Don't move."

   His lips are as hot as fire when they meet mine. Our tongues brush against each other; lightning travels up my spine as he reaches into me with his breath and pulls, and despite myself, I find myself moaning and rocking my hips against him. He tightens his grasp on my hips and pushes me down further so that I can no longer ride him. He's in me so deep. I hang on edge, keening, as my body burns.

   A wry smile pulls at one corner of his mouth. "I know the temptation is very great to only concentrate on the sex. Believe me, I am quite tempted, myself. Please. Focus on me instead. Meditate until we are both in trance. I need your cooperation in this, or I won't be able to perform my own role in the work we do. You're... starting to get very distracting."

   I listen for his breathing pattern, breathe in deeply, hold it, exhale. Repeat.

   Eventually, my own howling need seems to not so much die down as fade into the background and become unimportant. I listen to his breath and feel my own breath start to synchronize itself with his. I pay mindful attention. My hips still seem to be trying to rock of their own accord, but no longer urgently or quickly. He punctuates his breath with kisses; every time his lips touch mine, a little current of lightning tickles up and down my spine. Mostly, though, we just breathe in and out.

   Wind swirls around us. The sky flickers with light.

   At some point in this sighing of wind, the absinthe lucidity comes into our minds, enfolding us with green fairy wings; we look into each other's eyes, and in one accord, our mouths meet once more. I reach with my breath for the core of his being as he breathes me in, and soon we are burning in fire, sailing in stars, free of our bodies, rising into the multifoliate rose of the heavens as we dissolve into each other; we dance in flame, our passion a starburst in the darkness, witnessed by all the stars of the cosmos. God and goddess, we love.

   We explode as one, we cry out as one, we burn together and are One.

My books are crammed into milk crates as full as the milk crates can be packed. I had to sacrifice some of my crates because we couldn't fit all the crates into the back seat and trunk of the car in one trip without leaving behind my suitcase and bedding, so all the books got double and triple stacked. I can always steal more milk crates. Free modular bookcases, available behind cafeterias and convenience stores in the wee hours of the morning, if you're quick about it and keep yourself covered.

   He's keeping the computer Lydia gave me. There's no room for it in the car. Besides, I won't have any need for a PC of my own if I have access to the campus computer lab, nor will I need to use the AOL account to access the internet on campus.

   A large shopping bag sits on the floor, with a new pillow in it, a couple of towels, and a twin-size bed-in-a-bag with striped sheets and pillowcases and a dark paisley print comforter inside it, all from the department store in the mall we visited earlier today. The home goods section was nearly picked clean; I was lucky to find something that I liked. This time of year, there are a lot of college students getting dorm furnishings.

   Another shopping bag is stuffed full of cheap white cotton undershirts from the men's department. There are enough disposable shirts in there to cover my back for two months before I will need to buy more, if my back still needs protective coverings by then. It probably won't, but it never hurts to be prepared.

   I can fit most of the rest of my possessions in a single large suitcase, which I bought from the same department store where I found the bed linens. My regular clothing barely takes up half the space; my winter coat fills up the other half. There's plenty of room in among the clothing to fit the rest of my belongings, most of which are presents Erastes has given me over the years we've been together: The brocade fabric and trim from various Yule present wrappings that I eventually sewed into an altar cloth – not that I've ever bothered setting up my own altar, but someday, I might. A deck of tarot cards that look like they were inspired by Alphonse Mucha. Crowley's Thoth deck. A large gazing ball made of obsidian. An ornate jewelry box containing the ouroboros pendant, the opal choker, my earrings, and some other trinkets he gave me because he said they reminded him of me.

   One of the photos Lydia took of the two of us the day she had me pose for her in the cemetery is stuffed inside a book. I dithered over whether to take any of the pictures, but ultimately, I decided that I wanted the option to look at his face, some time in the indefinite future. He's keeping most of them, though, including the framed photo.

   The manacles go into the suitcase, then the steel-tipped scourge and the riding crop. I would have the other riding crop as well, the one that was his before we met each other, that over the years I covered with my bite marks and various bodily fluids, but he wants to keep that to remember me by, although he'll never use it again. A few other sex toys that are mine by default, because they can't be used on anyone else now that they've been inside me, go in as well.

   All that's left is the red-handled cane. I never did find out what wood it's made of, but whatever it is, it's incredibly sturdy, given the heavy use it's seen. I place the cane on top, diagonally, and start to zip the suitcase, but then decide it would be safer to just carry the cane separately. I don't want to risk breaking it.

  The tears start flowing when I zip the case shut.

   I'm still crying when he comes into the bedroom. I must have gotten loud. I was trying to keep my sobbing quiet. I don't want to burden him with this, not when he's hurting, too. We're trying to handle this rationally. That our attempt isn't working is irrelevant.

   I didn't want this to happen. I didn't want our last night together to be spent in tears.

   He puts his arms around me gingerly, and I cry into his shoulder.

   We have about a month and a half left before I go off to college. Usually, the heat and stickiness make the summer drag, for me, while I wilt miserably and think of cooler days to come, but now the summer is moving too quickly. The days and nights can't be long enough. Of course, the only way to make them long enough would be to stop time altogether.

   We had the blinds drawn all day to keep out the sunlight. Too much extra heat. It's been an unusually hot summer, so far. The air conditioner helps combat the humidity, but it's not up to keeping the apartment cool. Today the heat was so oppressive that the extra floor fan didn't even help circulate the air well enough to the bedroom; we wound up dragging our pillows into the living room, along with a couple of sheets, and tonight will be spent on an air mattress. Moving the futon into the cooler part of the apartment seemed like too much work.

  We'll inflate the air mattress when we're ready to sleep. We're not ready yet.

  We writhe together on the couch to the drone of the air conditioner, our skin covered with sweat. He has me pinned by my arms, and the things he's doing to my neck with his tongue and teeth are wringing cries of desperation out of me. I try to reach him with my pelvis, to drive him into me, but he's maddeningly out of my range. I have to settle for pushing against him.

   He rubs up against me, hard with desire, letting me feel his length without actually entering me. I whimper from frustration.

   "Did you like that?" he whispers.

   "Yes."

   "More?"

   "Yes. Please, yes."

   Another rocking movement that makes me cry out.

   "Do you want my cock inside you?"

   "Yes, dear God, yes..."

   "Hmm. I think I'll make you wait a while. You're very pleasing this way."

   A small groan escapes my lips, and he chuckles softly.

   "Perhaps you do need a little more attention than I've been giving you," he whispers into my ear, putting my wrists together into one hand while he reaches down with his other hand to stroke the wet spot between my legs. His fingers enter me, one by one, with slow and practiced teasing; I arch, desperately trying to get him further in.

   "More. Please. Don't stop."

   He continues to whisper into my ear, maddening me.

   "More. Please."

   "You're so beautiful like this," he says, a wistful tone creeping into his voice. "This moment should last forever. I want to remember you exactly like this. Look at me now, beloved. Your eyes are so lovely when you're hungry." And he slowly pulls out his hand, leaving me empty and gasping.

   "Please, I want you," I cry out, "please, my Erastes."

   "Don't worry. I'm not going to leave you perpetually hanging. After all, that would be cruel, wouldn't it? I promise I will give you your release – in a short while. Get up and drape yourself over the couch arm, please."

   Now he's smiling. After all these years, I know what that means. For that matter, even in the early part of the relationship, I knew what it meant when he started grinning like a Cheshire cat.

   He opens the living room chest, releasing scents of saffron and sandalwood and cedar into the air, and rummages. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see he's pulled out the red-handled cane.

   "It's been a while since I've used this one on you," he muses. "Did you miss it?"

   I briefly consider not dignifying that with an answer, but I give the matter some thought, and after a few moments I surprise myself by saying, "Yes." It's one of the wickedest implements of destruction in our apartment, and yes, I've missed feeling it against my skin these past few months. Go figure.

   "We'll have to make up for lost time, then. Don't move."

   The wood bites into me hard, making me cry out.

   And again.

   "I love you," I cry, when the third blow lands, burning like fire. "I love you, I love you, I love you." Over and over, with every harsh stroke. It becomes both a mantra against the pain and a plea for more. "I love you..."

   Eventually, the blows stop, and he's behind me, leaning into me, kissing tears off my cheeks and sweat off my neck, reaching around me to tease my labia and clit with his fingers. It doesn't take long for him to finish me off; his own need is unrelieved, however, and mine is, as usual, quickly resummoned. "I love you," I scream as he plunges inside me, and then we are pumping and bucking against each other until we are both screaming.

   He collapses on top of my back. "Se philo, eromene. Se philo."

   I sigh into the sofa cushion, crumpling my face into the fabric, and reach for his hands.

   We've passed through the suburbs of our own city and through a no man's land of industrial parks and towns that might count as suburbs. Now we're reaching the outskirts of the city where I'll be attending college. The music on the radio has mostly become static. I don't know when this happened. I haven't been paying attention.

   He notices the poor reception and turns the radio off. Static hurts his ears.

   Neither of us felt like listening to music anyway.

   I glance out the window again, seeing the peculiarly golden glow of summer on the verge of turning into autumn. It's too sunny and beautiful. The only appropriate weather for today would be dismal, rainy, and cold.

   "We need to talk."

   I look up from the Gene Wolfe book I've been devouring. Gene Wolfe has been my latest obsession; he tells deceptively simple stories that you only realize near the end you didn't understand at all, so you need to read them a second time, and then a third, and maybe on the fourth or fifth reading you'll have an idea of what he was trying to imply between the lines.

   "Yes, Erastes?"

   "We will be parted from each other after you move into your dorm room."

   "That does seem likely since I can't bilocate."

   "No. You misunderstand me." He takes a deep breath. "We've talked about this before; I can't be everything you need. That will never change. I couldn't help but notice, when we watched Sirens last night, how you looked at Giddy throughout the video, especially when the other women teased her or put her in distress; nor could I ignore your tears after the end of the movie, despite your efforts to hide them. You don't need to hide things from me, by the way. You never did. That you still try to keep some deeply held feelings to yourself is a bad sign. That was ultimately what made me do some hard thinking. But quite aside from the trust issue, there are still things you need that I can never provide for you. I can never be a woman, for one thing; I can submit to you, but I can't enjoy the pain you need to inflict; I can't give you the variety you need, because I can't share you..."

   "How do you know that if you haven't even tried?"

   "Spoken by someone who has told me she has never once felt jealousy, so monogamy never seemed worth her trouble. This is a rift between us that I don't think can be bridged. Please believe me when I say jealousy is excruciatingly painful. It makes me afraid to lose you when I get jealous. What if you meet a woman who meets your needs better than I do? What if something I say as a result of my jealousy angers you, or pushes you away? You're only twenty-five. You have your entire life ahead of you still. By settling down with me, you give up your chances to live life on your own terms."

   "No."

   "Look me in the eye and tell me you won't miss the chance to be with other women. Or to be with anybody capable of going more extremely into sensation play and submission than I am. I'm still astonished that you could get as far with me as you did, but you need more. Why did you initially ask to be not just my lover, but also my apprentice? Was it to tie yourself to me forever and use almost nothing of what I taught you?"

   "But I have been using it with you, haven't I? Some of it? Anyway, it's a bit late to think of that now. Our souls are married. Permanently."

   "Our fortunes, however, are not. Beloved, I am a dead end for you. You will resent that, eventually. We need to part ways after I drop you off at college. I can't keep you."

   No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no

   A lump begins to build in my throat. I swallow it. Hard.

   He looks at me incredulously. "Are you sure about this?"

   "I want a piece of our relationship that will last forever. You say we can't have each other. At least leave me with scars I can look at and run my hands over."

   "Ordinarily I'd save that for the aftermath of a collaring or a legal marriage, you know," he says quietly. "Marking you in preparation for severing our partnership seems almost sacrilegious."

   "We wed our souls this Midsummer." I've been saying that in protest a lot these past few days, albeit mostly to myself.

   "Yes. And we are parting so that my soul will not swallow yours."

   I hold out the whip in silence, imploring him with my eyes.

   Eventually, he sighs and takes it from my hand. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have me do something a little less physically traumatic? Perhaps have me carve something pretty on you with a blade, to make it look more artistic? Some intertwining roses and vines, possibly? If I cut deep enough and pull your flesh apart just a little as I do it, there should be some keloid tissue formed. A cautery pen would also work for that, if I had one; I'm not sure I could obtain one on short notice, especially not without medical credentials, but I could put some feelers out."

   "Then it would be decoration. I don't want just decoration. I want a part of us that I can keep."

   "Eromene. This is going to have serious consequences. I'm going to have to work hard to keep you out of the hospital after I'm done. And after we separate, I won't be around to clean and dress your wounds as they heal."

   "I think I can perform first aid on myself."

   "I'm half tempted to let you put the marks on yourself, too," he mutters.

   "Will I have to?"

   He gives me a sharp look. "That was uncalled for, Eromene."

   "I'm sorry..."

   "Forgiven. And no, do not do it to yourself. It will cause less damage for me to do the deed since I have a more experienced hand. Well. You seem determined, and it's your body to modify as you see fit. I wish the occasion was a happier one, though, and I wish you were choosing a method that wouldn't require as much aftercare. I don't like this... Take off your clothes. They're in the way. Let's get you in better lighting, too, so I can see what I'm doing."

   A few moments later, I'm standing in a patch of sunlight as he runs his hands over my body. This must be what it feels like to be sculptor's clay.

   "Your buttocks and thighs are the only part of you that have an ample subcutaneous fat layer," he murmurs, kneeling down to look. "They'd probably be the safest place to mark, although whipping you hard there would make it nearly impossible for you to sit down or otherwise put your weight on the area for weeks, which will be impractical for you. Hmm. You might already have a few scars from the last time I used the whip end of your scourge on you; there are some interesting pale lines here."

   "They might be stretch marks. I did gain some weight since moving in with you."

   "You may be right about that."

   He kisses my legs and runs his hands along them, up and down.

   "I want to wear them close to my heart," I whisper. "It's the part of me that will miss you the most when we're separated."

   "In that we are equal," he sighs. "Oh, my beloved." He stands up and puts his arms around me. I lean against his shoulder; we sway in place, unwilling to relinquish each other.

   He is the first to pull away.

   "It will have to be on your upper back. Using the whip on your breasts would be an extremely bad idea. I'm going to assume you prefer your nipples to remain attached to your body."

   Well. Yes.

   "And I think you'd better lie on top of the chest and hold on tightly," he says. "Even if I only hit you once. If I hit you more than once, I'll need to get some ropes to secure you and give you something to strain against. Did you only want one blow, since we're only doing this to leave marks? Or should I keep going?"

   "Have we ever stopped at just one of anything?" I ask wryly, arranging myself as best as I can on the chest.

   "It will be interesting to see whether or not you safeword before I risk flaying your back to ribbons," he muses. "I can't believe that after several years with me, you have still never used your safeword, except for the one time, which probably shouldn't count because you forgot it before you could actually use it... All right. We'll do that, then. When you lose control of your body, though, I'm going to have to restrain you, provided you don't beg me to stop, first. If I make you scream uncontrollably, that will need to be addressed, as well. I'd rather not get a knock on the door from the police. It is unlikely that any police officers called to the scene would understand or sympathize with the nuances of our situation. If I must gag you, repeatedly opening and closing your hand will be your safeword, and I will be watching carefully for it. Brace yourself."

   The first lash lands. I feel my flesh rip apart in a blaze of agony. It matches the pain in my heart.

   I will love you forever, I think, as I start to cry.

   We pull off the interstate and drive along a road that winds through a large public botanical garden, and then up a hill. This is the same route we took when we went to hear the symphony orchestra and chorus perform Wagner. The university that gave me a free ride happens to sit across the street from the concert hall, and from the art museum grounds where Erastes and I embraced on the lawn and talked about why we had no future together despite wanting to belong to each other forever. It was sound reasoning that neither of us wanted to heed.

   I will no longer wake up by his side each morning, my wrist bound to his. Instead, I will be walking past my memories every day on my way to classes. I have no idea if they will seem a blessing, in my exile, or a torment. No doubt they will be a mixture of both, just like everything else about this relationship; only without him delivering it, the torment will no longer be sweet.

   My back starts itching again. I resist the temptation to scratch.

   He helps me move the suitcase and books into my new dorm room. I have a single. It's air-conditioned. All the rooms in this dormitory are singles, climate-controlled, and grouped in suites around a kitchenette, bathroom, and den to mimic apartments. In my experience, bedrooms in apartments are not the size of walk-in closets, the way the dorm rooms seem to be, but I hadn't expected much when I listed this dormitory building, an ugly mid-story concrete tower that sits on a far corner of the campus, as my top choice of residence hall – all that mattered to me was privacy. I've lived on my own for too long to want to endure having a roommate again, not that my past roommates ever wanted to endure me, anyway; and the prettier, less cramped dorms on the north side of campus all have shared rooms.

   The building seems oddly deserted right now. Either there is a lull in activity, or everybody is in an orientation meeting that I neglected to find out about. Maybe they're eating lunch.

   He puts down my last overstuffed crate of books as I fuss with my new bed coverings. I am still fussing when he gently pushes me aside and makes my bed for me.

   There is nothing more to carry or settle.

   Our eyes meet.

   Silence.

   And then his arms reach for me, and I know nothing more. "Please," I whisper, afraid to trust my voice, because I know I'll start crying again if I speak louder. "Let me have you one last time. I don't want to let you go yet. I can't let you go yet..."

   Our lips meet. We fumble at each other's clothes with shaking hands. Eventually, he has me down to nothing but my protective cotton undershirt, and I've somehow got his clothing off. I want to be completely naked next to him, skin to skin, but of course, that isn't a good idea with my injuries. So much awkwardness, now. We, who know each other so well and who have shared so great an intimacy for years that we know each other's bodies like we know our own, are reduced to this clumsiness. I want even this to last forever.

   Of course, it won't.

   He is gentle when he takes me; neither of us has the heart for more. Our hands reach and grope, confused, around each other's wrists. "Hold my hands," I rasp, and we clutch each other tightly as if sending the energy of our passion to each other through our palms could somehow preserve us from endings. We try to be slow; but when he kisses me, I feel the flood well up within me and I can no longer hold myself back; we roll together, and I am riding on top of him, hard and fast and hungry. Orgasms pound through me in waves. I feel him straining underneath me, coming with me; and then it is done, and I fall into him, and the sobs shake me until we are both covered with my tears.

   I'm not the only one crying.

   We cling to each other. Afternoon sunlight lands on our skin, taunting us.

   The sun eventually sinks lower, and we are left in shadow.

   "I cannot stay here forever," he tells me gently. "As much as I would like to."

   Of course, he can't.

   "Look at me, beloved. This is important. I have one last request, and it will probably be the worst one I ever ask of you. Do you promise to follow it?"

   "Yes. For you, anything," I reply, choking back tears.

   "Very well. I ask you to be brave for me. It is bad enough for me that I will never be with you again, but the thought of hurting you like this is horrible; I wish it could be avoided, but it can't. It was with your future happiness in mind that I made the decision to separate. I need to know that someday you will be happy again, and that I haven't completely shattered you. Please. Live and be brave. Until you can do that for yourself, at least do it for me."

   I nod miserably.

   "I need to hear it from your mouth, eromene."

   "I promise to live. I'll be brave," I whisper, my throat swelling with more tears. I'm sure they won't be the last I shed tonight.

   "Good. Thinking about you happy and whole in the future will give me the strength that I need to endure this." He sighs. "I am proud of you. I will always be proud of you. I will always love you. And if you do not let me go now, I may never be able to leave, and we both know I must."

   I bite my lip.

   "Goodbye, my beloved."

   He gets up from my narrow bed. It only takes him three steps to leave the room. He closes the door behind him, leaving me in twilit darkness.

   I am alone.

   I bury my face in my pillow and start to cry again.