A conversation amongst two young lovers who are beginning to realize the end of forever, or maybe not.

“We have to talk about it, right?”

“We should talk about it, right?”

“Do we put a timer on this?”

“Do we let it play out?”

“Do we try?”

Was that even an option? As sophomores, then juniors, then seniors, it always seemed so obvious that we would go where we would go and when the time came for us to go to college, that would be our end. It seemed pretty clear cut when we were years/months away from this, that breaking up before college was the inevitable, it was the thing to do, it was the right thing to do.

Yet here we are, sitting side by side on a bench where on the other side is a statue man painting a landscape, eating our soft serve ice cream and waiting for the other to either say, “It’s over,” or “Maybe it’s not.”

“I don’t want this to end badly.”

“I don’t want this to end at all.”

And it’s not the fear of the unknown and it’s not the agonizing feeling that if I can’t have you, I wouldn’t be able to survive. It’s the understanding and realization that I don’t need you to live. I could survive without you. This could end and in a couple of months, I will still be alive. My heart will continue to beat and my lungs will continue to work. I recognize all of that, that I can live and thrive without you, but I absolutely do not want to.

“So, we try?”

“We try?”

“We try.”

“We try.”

And so we begin trying for something two years ago we never would have imagined would grow into something worth trying for.