I don't know why I called her up suffice it to say that I did and had a general sinking feeling every second that I talked to her. I wasn't sure whether it was the dread of knowing that she'd slept with someone else in the interval - I know I had and was no saint - or the idea that she was just fine without me, but something told me that I should not have called her. She was a good girl, not one that I regretted having seen in the least, and as such it hurt all the more to speak to her. We probably would have continued seeing each other indefinitely had she not moved, maybe more out of convenience than anything else - it's much tougher to look for a new girlfriend than to keep the one you've got, after all – but that wasn't what fate had in mind and she moved three hundred miles away, to another city and to another life that didn't involve me in the least.

We said polite things to one another and I know that I avoided saying anything that might have been considered out of line though I did confess to her that I still loved her and would have taken her back. She glossed over my uncouth statement as though it had never been said in the first place and proceeded to tell me about her life as it now was and how she was happy though not as happy as it could have been. I wanted to tell her that I now saw the error in my ways, that I was a jerk and that she was too good for me and that I should have treated her better, and that were she ever to come back to me I would treat her as the princess that she was but my ex-girlfriend interrupted me before such a confession could be made.

Unlike most relationships, I don't think that there was any one place that we went wrong except that we depended too much upon mathematics and childish games. Twice before, when I had done something worthy of her breaking up with me, I convinced her successfully not to do so but at the same time warning her that I would only do so twice. If she persisted a third time, I would do nothing to stop her. When she tried to end it the final time, she called from across an ocean and called it quits and I was as good as my word though I felt something twist inside. The third time was a charm, as people say, and after almost two years she got her wish, we were done. There was nothing I could do to stop her, had I decided to abandon my remedial sense of bond, after all she was in another country and not one that was involved in the NAFTA agreement. I couldn't insist to come over, or tell her to wait another day, if she had decided that it was done then it was so.

At first I couldn't figure out whether I was more upset over the idea that she was possibly sleeping with another guy - a charge I could never prove even if I truly believed it to be so - or whether I was upset at the way she did it. A couple of weeks later I decided that it was the latter and felt all the worse for my lack in trust in her. When we talked again, after two months of silence, over the Thanksgiving weekend, I found out that she was in much the same state as I was though perhaps less proactive. I reveled in my misery while she chose to instead try to trudge on without much success. While I, unemployed and generally unproductive in the interval, chose to drink and think about what had happened between us in an effort to cope with something bigger than I knew I could deal with on my on, she picked up a new job and tried to trudge on. Neither of us meeting much success in our ultimate goal which was to forget about the past and look forward to the future.

Speaking with her though, she seemed amazingly well adjusted while I felt the drunk - perhaps because I had had not a few drinks in the hours before - and, though a part of me reviled her for her mental health, the more chemically balanced side commended her for her positive attitude, though not out loud. I was happy for her, and tried to play up a positive view while all I really wanted to know was that she still missed me as much as I still missed her.

I asked her about when her next trip was to my city and she said that she didn't know, money decided her travel plans more than desire, and I expressed an interest in seeing her again as soon as possible. She sounded hesitant but after a couple of minutes thought, agreed that seeing me again might be a good thing, and she promised to call me should she ever take the train up again.

I wanted to delve more into her personal life and any empty flings she might have had when my phone, a wireless gift from years before with a battery life as long as an old man's bladder, decided to give up the ghost and start beeping in warning that it would soon quit. I asked if I could call her the next evening but she sounded dodgy while explaining that she had plans – not an unreasonable explanation given that it was going to be a Friday – but her tone of voice said what her words couldn't, that she couldn't talk to me so much so soon. I didn't push the topic and my phone gave its final shrill cry before cutting transmission, leaving me with a dead receiver in my hand and a head full of unspoken emotions that I so badly needed to express.