Our Final Goodbye

"Ass, I was never unavailable to you emotionally, you could always come to me if you needed me I was just unavailable to you romantically."

"It was all the same to me, I couldn't have one without the other. I wanted to push you away again and for the first time you let me."

"I had to. I've already told you I couldn't let myself be available for you knowing you'd leave. I knew you wanted me. I broke my own heart a little that night." She finishes snuggling into me a little tighter.

The silence brings me back to the present. Our wine is finished. I look over to the house to see all the lights except the patio lights are out. I look down at the mop of black hair leaning into my chest and whisper "Fancy a night swim?"

"I'd love one but I don't have a costume, and I'm not skinny dipping with you and not at your Dad's house."

"I'm sure I have some shorts and a T-shirt you can wear in the pool that will protect your modesty."

I slowly guide her back to the house, in my room I quickly offer her some spare shorts and a t-shirt and the use of my bathroom to change. I change quickly before going in search of some towels. She's ready by the time I return and takes one of the towels from me before reclaiming her ownership of my hand.

Her continued need to have some form of physical contact is confusing me. It feels so intimate and wrong knowing that when this night ends she's going back to her boyfriend exorcised from the ghost of our previous love. And yet she had refused to let go of me since that confession.

Our late-night swim becomes another exercise in intimacy, aware of the late hour we can't splash or make too much noise so she simply lets herself float around the pool on her back with her head resting on my shoulder, cheek to cheek as I walk us around the shallow pool. At some point I find myself unconsciously stroking her body, finally giving in to my need to touch her. I had known every inch of that body, the more I touched her the more I remembered. It's so familiar and right. She may be softer, rounder and more mature now than she was then, but she is still the woman I've loved desperately for half my life. Through enormous effort I manage to avoid her more intimate places, reminding myself they aren't mine to touch anymore. The few times I get close she makes no effort to stop me, not encouraging me either. Perhaps she's curious to see how far I'll go now she's surrendered herself to my control, content to drift through the water going wherever I'm prepared to take her.

Eventually, we get cold and it's time to head in. I quickly change in my room while she uses my bathroom. She comes out to find me lying on my bed as I move to get up she pushes me back and snuggles into my chest. We're close to a boundary we've never crossed. We've never spent the night together before. We've crossed pretty much every physical boundary in our relationship at one point or another but we've never enjoyed the intimacy of holding each other as we slept through the night. This was such a small thing we'd never had and I regretted it as much as I regretted everything I'd ever done that had hurt her. I let her find her comfort against me and take whatever intimacy from the contact she is searching for.

Eventually, she gets up to use the bathroom on her return she asks me to stand up. As I do without a word she pulls my head down to her and kisses me. It's not a goodbye kiss, it's not a kiss of lust, it's a lover's kiss. I know all of her kisses, and I understand the moment. She needed me to stand up because she didn't trust herself to give me that kiss on the bed. She's given me complete control of where the night will go. She won't stop me if I take it further but she's not going to initiate it.

In that moment I needed her as much as I ever had, my desire for her was something that would never wane. I kiss her again to get a sense of her lust, does her need match mine? And then I feel it, her hesitation, that split second of indecision before she gives in make my choice easy. She needs me to be strong enough to refuse her. This will be my gift to her. Pulling back from our kiss, I look in those deep beautiful eyes I had loved since the day we met.

"Helen I can't do this to you. You deserve your happiness. If we go any further the hurt will be much greater than it already is. Go to the one who loves you enough to let you have this, knowing that the results could break his heart if we let it."

I can see her holding back the tears, as she looks back at me. She sees everything, she sees how much I want her, how hard it is for me to refuse her, and the pain giving her up will cause me. But she can also see my sincerity, my need for her happiness.

Nodding her head, "Thank you, Mike."

Desperate to change the subject. I turn back to what brought us together in the first place.

"Why don't you show me these things of mine? And we'll get you home?"

Walking slowly to her car, she brings out a box, all the things I gave her as gifts, some handmade, some purchased and perhaps most significantly an old football jersey. I had made the men's team at our local football club when we were 15 I was so proud when I was given that jersey, and she claimed it as her own pretty much the day I earned it. Just before I left the first time she took it from my wardrobe with the threat 'You may be leaving but my jersey isn't'. I look at them and give her the box back.

"None of these things were ever mine. They always belonged to you, I was just allowed to borrow them for a while. I can't keep them I'm sorry." She nods and takes them back.

I open her car door and get her settled. She gives me one more kiss, this time a good bye kiss.

"I love you, Mike."

"I love you too. Forever and always."

With tears in both of our eyes, she pulls out of the driveway. For the first time she's leaving me and I am letting her. Our perfect goodbye will be my last gift to her.