Inspire.

The walls were bare, the whitewashed emptiness of something lost. She wasn’t sad, really, to reach a temporary end. She felt like she should be, maybe, or that she should feel something. But it was for the best, and they both knew it.

It had been seven years; seven long years of struggling, of love won and lost. They found each other, lost each other, cried and laughed and grew up. She knew that she needed him, but perhaps that was the reason that she needed to be away from him. He felt the same, she knew, and there was nothing left to do but to say her final goodbye. As least, she reasoned, for now.

She heard him enter the room from behind her, smelled the faint remains of the cigarette he had just smoked. He was unsure of where to go from here, but in honesty, so was she. They had been together that she knew of nothing else, and though the thought was intimidating, it was also exciting.

“So this is really it.”

She turned, expecting him to fight her, to beg her to stay. But he was leaning against the doorway, and his smile surprised her. It wasn’t a full blown grin, but it was thoughtful, encouraging, almost.

“I’ll miss you, you know,” he told her, shrugging, that smile still on his lips.

“I know,” she responded. And she smiled, too, knowing that despite everything they had been through, they would still be them.

“Don’t let that go to your head, though.”

They stood there for a while, just watching each other, each individually replaying the last few years in their minds. She moved first, shifting her weight and reaching to pick up her bag. She slung it simply over her shoulder with a strange finality, and he blinked. He pushed himself off the door frame and moved forward, reaching out for her hands and holding them tightly between his.

“You promise you’ll come back?”

She looked up at him, his eyes slowly moving across her face. Her lips curled, and she nodded, squeezing his hands with hers.

“I’ll always come back,” she told him, and he pulled her against his chest in an embrace.

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

She leaned against him, closing her eyes and letting the silence fill the room. He had been with her through so much, helped her discover her passion for life. She felt like a bird being let free, and though she wondered if she would be able to fly without him there alongside her, the only thing for her to do was try. So she pulled away, pressed a final kiss to his thin lips with a smile, and moved towards the door. She turned in the doorway, taking one last look around the room, and one last look at him. He had pushed his hands deep into his pockets, offering her a parting smile. She returned it, coupled it with her final words.

“Goodbye, Gerard.”

And then she was gone.