She never intended for it to work out like this. For a long time she thought he might have been The One, or at least a good enough impersonation of The One to be worth sticking with.
But his behaviour had become increasingly erratic. She urged him to see someone about his mood swings, but he always resisted, believing he could pull himself out of the slump without help.
After a while, her tolerance levels dropped. She felt constantly irritable, every little thing he did seemed to grate on her nerves. And as she drifted away from him, spent more time with work colleagues, he grew more clingy, and she hated that.
In the end, there was little she could do but walk out. She knew that in time it would be good for both of them, but it hurt a lot. The look on his face as she walked out was the worst. She still saw it sometimes when she closed her eyes to sleep. The pain, the anguish in his eyes, the knowledge she had caused it.
She couldn't think of anything to say when she left, couldn't deal with the starkness of the silence. So she said they should be friends and regretted it as soon as the words were out of her mouth.
Even though she had moved out and left him rattling around in the attic apartment on his own, he acted as if they were still together. He sent her messages several times a day, trying to arrange a lunchtime coffee or an evening pint. No matter how feeble the excuses with which she fobbed him off, he didn't give up.
In the end, she broke down one night, chatting about the situation with a girlfriend. The stress of not being with him was almost as all-consuming as it was before she had left. She wished she had remained, just so she might have had some peace.
Her friend urged her to make a clean break of it. She had been offered a promotion at work and it would mean relocating to the coast to manage a new branch of the company. She had been planning to turn it down.
But the more she thought of it, the more it made sense. She knew moving away would be a clear sign to him that they did not have a future together, as friends or otherwise.
Even though she knew she should break the news in person, she couldn't face it. She got a new work mobile phone and didn't give him the number. A friend offered to pick up the rest of her possessions from their old flat.
It felt odd to be moving on, but it felt good too. She knew this was the only way for either of them to take a step forward. Their relationship had been so intense and so busy, other areas of their lives had been neglected.
Now they could get on with things. She still thought of him sometimes, even picked up the phone to see how he was doing. But she always hung up before he could answer. It was better that way.
He represented another time in her life, a period when she was low and in need of support. But the comfort had worn thin and she had to get away from it all.
She wished she hadn't had to walk out, that the relationship had ended in another way. But it couldn't be helped. It was history now. And in any case, the heartbreak was probably good for his art.
This story was inspired by the song 'Somebody That I Used To Know' by Gotye.
