Goodbye

I walk into Andrew's apartment holding bags of Chinese food for dinner. "Andrew I have dinner." He doesn't reply. I sit the food down on the kitchen counter. Maybe he is in his bedroom listening to music I think as I walk to his room, stopping in the doorway.

The sight in front of me is definitely not what I expected. Three suitcases lie on Andrew's bed. Both are nearly filled. All the miscellaneous objects that use to be in the room are packed away in bins. I look at a trash bin in the middle of the room. He tore all my photos off his wall and discarded them, while the ones of his family and friends are packed away.

He isn't in the room, so I walk in, picking my photos out of the trash. I sit on the bed, holding them, but not looking at them. I hear footsteps come closer to the room, but I don't move. I stare blankly at the ground, confused.

The second the footsteps reach the room, they stop. I hear a sharp intake of breath before the footsteps proceed then stop directly in front of me.

"Selena," he says nervously. "I thought you had to work tonight."

I don't look at him when I answer. "The ER wasn't busy so they sent me home." I finally look up but avoid his gaze. "Andrew, what is all of this?" I say, standing up and waving my arms to designate the room. I turn and look at him, but he won't look back. He sits on the bed, his face falling into his hands. I lean against the nearest wall, my eyes still trained on him. "Answer me Andrew. What is going on?"

He sighs, then looks at me. His eyes are red, like he has been crying. I want to run over, hold him, and ask him what's wrong; but I can't. I need to know what's going on. "You know how my parents are from Germany?" he says cautiously.

"Yes," I say, a mix between a question and a statement.

"And I have always wanted to stay there for more than a couple weeks."

"Okay?... Where is this going?"

He gulps before continuing. "I'm going to Germany."

I slump down on the wall until I reach the floor. "You're what?"

He gets up, moving towards me. "Selena, it's not what you think."

I hold my hand up to stop him from moving any closer. "Really now? Because it sounds exactly like you are moving to Germany and leaving me behind. It sounds like you weren't planning on telling me you were leaving the country." He looks away when I say this. I scoff, shaking my head. "You weren't planning on telling me." I get up from the floor, brushing myself off. I leave the room. Seconds after I'm gone I hear him follow.

"Selena stop." He catches up to me and grabs my arm.

"Why?" I say facing him. "Why should I? So I can sit there and listen to you make excuses of why you were going to leave without telling me?"

"I wasn't going to make up excuses," he says, trying desperately to defend himself.

"Really?" I say, not believing a word. "Then what were you going to say?"

"The truth."

"Oh yeah, and what's the truth?"

"The truth." He pauses. "The truth is..." he trails off, not finishing his sentence and looks away.

I pull my arm away from his grasp. "That's what I thought." I grab my stuff and exit his apartment.

I'm on the street almost at my car when I hear him yell, "The truth is I didn't want to tell you because I knew you wouldn't understand."

I stop and turn around, my face twisting up. "What did you say?"

He finally reaches me, stopping a mere inches in front of me. "You heard me," he says nervously. "You wouldn't understand because you're a genius. You're only twenty years old and already a major trauma surgeon. I'm just a kid in college trying to major in history, hoping to become a professor in ten years. You're extraordinary while I'm just normal. And I don't want to be normal anymore. So I decided I should go to Germany to study there. I'll have a better chance of making a name for myself and standing out from the crowd."

I stare blankly at him. "You're joking, right?"

He snorts. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"Wouldn't understand what?" I say, frustrated. "That you don't want to be normal? Believe me Andrew it is better to be normal than like me. You know what I went through during school. You know how much I was tormented by my peers and even my own family. I would kill to have had a normal life."

"Yeah well you wouldn't be saying that if you were normal."

I throw my hands up. "So what if you are normal? Why do you have to go across the Atlantic Ocean to be extraordinary?" I make quotation marks when I say extraordinary.

"Well I can't be that with you in my life."

I close my eyes and swallow, mouth quivering and on the verge of crying. "Oh."

He steps closer to me. "Selena that's not what I meant."

I open my eyes, stepping away. "No, no that's okay. I get it. I'm just holding you back, and you don't want me to get in your way. Loving me is getting in your way of making a name for yourself and you just can't look past it."

"That not true," he says trying to hug me, but I gently push him away.

"It has to be, because otherwise you wouldn't leave me. Otherwise, you wouldn't have thought about leaving without telling me. Otherwise, you would have discussed this with me. You don't know how I would have responded it you had asked me to go to Germany. Maybe I would have gone with you."

"Would you?" he asks, interrupting my rant. "Would you go to Germany with me?" He looks intently at me.

I shrug my shoulders. "I honestly don't know. I mean it is possible I would have gone if you had asked me earlier. But now, I can't say I would since I know you intended to leave without me."

He looks away and sighs. "I guess this is goodbye, isn't it?"

"Yeah." A tear falls from my eye. "I guess it is."

He wipes away the fallen tear. "Will you call and write?"

I shake my head. "Probably not."

He pulls me in for a hug, and this time I don't push him away. We stay hugging for a few moments before he lifts me head up and gently kisses me. "I'm so sorry."

I pull away and smile weakly before walking to my car, tears streaming down my face. I get into my car and drive away, never looking back.