Description: Goodbyes are the hardest. Unfortunately for our protagonists, they will have to bid each other adieu and it is unlikely that they will ever see each other again.

Requirements:
1) An actual parting between the protagonists -- whether they come back together or not is up to you. (Read the second stipulation under "Optional".)
2) A creative way of saying goodbye without actually saying it (read the second stipulation under "No" for details)
3) The reason for the parting has to be WILLING -- this means that nothing is forcing one to leave the other. It must be out of the character's own volition.
4) Cell phones must make several appearances.
5) Setting must begin in the Fall/Autumn season.

Optional:
- Both are leaving for different things, instead of one leaving the other behind.
- They are reunited. If you choose to do this, however, they must be separated for at least a year. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder, anyone?)
- Cell phones are a key part of the story.

No:
- Airport/bus terminal goodbye scenes - actual usage of the word "goodbye" or any of its variations in any languages (this includes "see you later", "'bye", "farewell", "arrivederci", "adios", "hasta la vista", "adieu", "aloha", "au revoir", "auf wiedersehen", "adeus", "paalam".. whatever else you think of) by either protagonist in dialogue
- Text messaging or chatting online. As much as I love to do both, I hate seeing it in fiction.

--

But now it’s over, it’s over, why is it over
We had the chance to make it
Now it’s over, it’s over, it can’t be over
I wish that I could take it back
But it’s over
"It’s Not Over" - Secondhand Serenade

--

His shoulder is hard and uncomfortable, but I never want to let go. He probably doesn’t care for my tears messing up his fancy business suit, or the way that it’s become my own snot rag, but that’s hardly important, and only I could be stupid enough to think about it at a time like this.

All that should really matter to me, my world, is him, and focusing on freezing this moment forever. This imperfect, tearful moment that I’m sharing with him, and it’s probably the best one I’ll have in a long, long time.

He has such a beautiful face. “Will I—ever see you? After today I mean? Or is this—it?” I stutter and pause like some kind of idiot, but I think that he’s used to it by now. I always sound kind of stupid, especially when he comes around. I guess he just stuns the smart right out of my mouth or something.

“No.”

I know what he means, but that won’t stop me from asking, and I think he senses my question coming because he gets kind of stiff, like he’s getting ready. “No, I’ll never see you? Or—or no, this isn’t it, yes, there’s more?”

I think it breaks his heart a bit, almost as much as it breaks mine, when he answers me. As if to avoid the sudden hurt, he refuses to look at my face. I see the tears in his eyes. He never cries. “This is it. We’ll never—see each other—ever.” He stutters and chokes the way I do when I normally speak, and I know that this is as hard for him as it is for me.

“Why do you have to do this?” His arms go around me and he finally hugs me back, and it reminds me of a time only two months ago, in the middle of a warm night at his summer cottage.

“I don’t.”

I feel my heart breaking all over again, before it had the chance to heal from the last time. I know that he doesn’t have to do this, that this doesn’t have to be it—but it hurts so much less to pretend that he’s being forced into this.

“Why do you want to, then?” I whisper, moving my head so that I can stare into his eyes. His amazing, soul-searching eyes, the ones that are leaking tears, the tears that I want to wipe away at any cost.

He looks so hurt.

“People like you—and people like me—we don’t—belong. I’m—further up on the chain, and you’re somewhere around the bottom.” He closes those pretty eyes, and, as much as I miss them, at least I don’t have to see how much he’s hurting inside.

“So it’s a social thing?” My voice is dull and almost without feeling. I don’t know how my heart is still beating, when it feels so heavy, or when it’s broken into so many pieces, or—or anything.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” He squeezes his eyes tighter, and more tears are forced out, and they roll down his cheeks and onto my face. It feels like I’m being rained on, which seems almost appropriate.

And then I feel his cell phone vibrating in his jacket pocket, and the warmth of his arms around me disappears. I take a step away from him as he pulls out his phone and looks at the caller I.D. He utters a quiet curse before wiping his tears on his sleeve, and he slides open his cell phone.

“Hello.” His voice is stiff. I hate when he uses this voice, but I can always tell who he’s talking to. I want to make that shrew disappear forever. She’s probably the cause of all of this, somehow. She—she’s probably making this happen somehow. She’s probably—forcing him into it somehow. Or something.

“Yes, Mother. We’re just—no, I’m not changing my mind. I promise. We’re—separating.” He looks at me. “Forever.”

It feels more final this time—like he didn’t mean it before, but he does now. My tears roll down my own face, and rain down on the grass, like his tears raining on my face. And suddenly—I want to leave. I want out. I want to run and to scream until my throat tears and bleeds and I can’t feel anything but the physical pain. I want to overpower the emotional pain, I can’t handle it, I don’t want a heart, I want out—

So I turn, and I walk away.

My arms move around my body, and I hug myself—as if to hold myself together, because I feel that I might fall apart or something, I don’t know.

As I walk among the falling, colourful leaves, I reach into my small, cheap purse—and pull out the small grey cell phone that he bought me five months ago for my birthday, when I really believed that we would be forever, and it would never come to this, that I would never have to walk out of his big house alone. When I believed that something like this—when thoughts of something like this happening had never occurred to me, because they sounded so far-fetched.

For a second—I want to throw it, smash it against the ground and break it, break it like he broke me—but I can’t. My grip on it loosens only slightly—and I put it back into my purse, and continue to walk.

I don’t know why I keep this phone—maybe because it’s mine, or maybe because, even though he and I will never have one another—I will always love him, and he will always love me, and, even though I know that he made his own choice to leave—I know that he still wants me like I want him, and taking this phone is almost like taking a little piece of him with me, to keep forever.

It’s almost like I still own a piece of his heart, and that’s enough comfort to take me through this hard time.

--

AN: Yaaaaaaaaaaay me! I’ve been wanting to try one of these for the longest time, and I know there are probably a bajillion people who’ll do so much better than me, but, well, it’s fun to try, right? ; ) So here’s my attempt! : D

Hope it’s decent. : )

-Chelsea