Standing at the bus stop, in the rain, was worth it to see her. Coming down the street in her beat-up raincoat and the crooked umbrella, she was a goddess, his guiding light in the storm. The thunder didn’t scare her. She kept a steady course to where he stood, soaked and dripping, waiting for her.

“What took you so long?” he shouted above the rain, but she shook her head and smiled coyly.

“I’ll tell you later!” she yelled. “Are we going or what?”

He nodded and took her dry, dusty hand in his. His amore, they would be in love forever. The perfect couple.

All of their friends had always said that they were meant for each other, that they fit like a hand in a glove (or other dirtier references that his friends had cooked up). They were joined at the hip, locked within the same world while shutting everyone else out. Their friends said that they were a perfect match, but all they knew was that they felt like a couple. They held hands, shared drinks and clothes, lived in the same apartment. He knew that they were in love.

She was critical, sarcastic, angry at the world. He was light, optimistic, and didn’t let things get to him. They were polar opposites, attracted by the other’s magnetic forces, because that was the way the world worked.

They did have their bad days, like any couple. It was usually her that said something especially snarky, he that said that he didn’t understand, and her that blew up. In the beginning, there had been fewer fights, but after a while, there were many more, and she often seemed distant. He wondered what was going on in her head, but they didn’t talk about it. She still smiled at him and kissed him and made love to him, and so everything was fine, everything was okay.

That night, during the downpour, they went out to dinner. It was their first anniversary, a big day. Their friends had gotten them more gifts for the apartment, making jokes about marriage. He didn’t mind. He would take it slow as long as she wanted to.

She was tense on the bus, snapping at him for dripping water on her or breathing too loudly. He shrugged and smiled, basking in her beauty, not really listening to what she was saying. Is something wrong? he wanted to ask, but didn’t dare.

At the restaurant, a fancy place where they gave him angry looks about his wet jeans jacket over his suit, she played with her silverware and tried not to look him in the eye. He was nervous, but just as he would be about to say something she would look up and smile, not reassuringly, but just enough to keep him quiet until the food came.

She picked at her fish with the tip of the fork, but didn’t eat any. Finally, he put down his fork and looked at her face, because her eyes were on the ground, and her mind was somewhere else.

“Is something wrong?” he asked her. Immediately tears sprang from her eyes and he regretted saying anything.

“I’m not doing this anymore, this pretending, okay?” She looked up at him then, her brown eyes wide and sorrowful. “I don’t love you anymore.”

He sat dumbly and stared right through her, his world collapsing around him, suffocating.

“Did you hear me!” she shouted wildly, taking his hand, but he drew it away. “I never loved you!” she finished, still crying, and then she got up and walked out of the restaurant.

There were people all around him, staring, and oh God, they were looking at him with a mixture of pity and resentment. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He asked for the check, and paid, and left in a hurry, leaving two plates full of food. It was still raining outside, but lighter now. She was standing a block away, at the bus stop, crying, or maybe those were merely drops of rain streaming down her face. He ran to her, but the bus came before he got there. She got on, the doors closed, and the bus drove away, him shouting her name as he ran after it.

He cried then, too. He went back to the bus stop, shoulders shaking and eyes squeezed tight to shut out the world, waiting for the next bus to take him home.

She wasn’t at the apartment when he got there. Instead, after getting no sleep, he got a phone call the next day. Of course, it was her. She said she would come back to get her stuff. He asked her if she had really never loved him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and hung up.

When she came back to the apartment, he stopped her at the door. “Were you just pretending the whole time?” he asked, his eyes pleading, asking her to say no, to tell him that she was still in love with him, that the rough times would be over soon.

“Yes,” she said. She sounded exhausted. Maybe she hadn’t slept either. “It was a lie. I even lied to myself.” She looked into his eyes. “You don’t have to forgive me, but it’s the truth.”

He let her through the door and sat at the kitchen table drinking shots while she went around the apartment gathering her things. She said nothing more until she was at the door, rolling a suitcase behind her. She looked back at him.

“Bye,” she said softly, but he didn’t answer, only stared at his shot glass on the table, and then she shut the door behind her.