Ficlets

He slouched back into his chair. Several minutes passed before he said, “Well?”

She put down the remote control. “Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to apologise?”

“Love,” she said with a sneer in her voice, “Means never having to say you’re sorry.”

“No,” he snapped. “Love is having the courage to know when you’ve done something wrong, and apologising for it. That’s what love is, okay? You’ve built this idea in your head of what you think love is, and it’s largely built on the basis of lyrics from crappy 80s love ballads. Well y’know what? I’m done with it, okay? I’m done with giving you everything, with making sacrifices, with walking down that road and never once seeing you walking back the other way to reciprocate. I’m done, alright?”

He realised that he’d stood up at some point during his outburst. Quietly, he added, “We’re done.”

She was silent. A tear rolled down her cheek. And then, quite unexpectedly, she smiled.

“We’re done?” she said.

“We’re done,” he repeated.

And they were.