"I'm Leaving"

A real man is willing to walk away.
A real man only plays the game if certain conditions are met.
A real man respects himself enough to be willing to cut his losses and move on down the line.
------

We've argued for an hour.
We have sex.
Things are pleasant.
Not in my heart, but overall, I relax and let go some of what was holding back.

We doze off to sleep.

Her phone goes off.
It's too fucking late for a male friend to be calling her.
She doesn't answer it but the tension in her body tells me what I need to know.
I do something I never do.
"Who is it?"
She doesn't answer.
"Are you going to fucking answer me?"
She pauses and it stretches on into eternity.
I can feel it rising inside me.
I sit up in the bed.
"I won't ask you again."
"It's no one. Don't worry about it. Can we please just sleep?"
I sit and stare through the blinds and into the night sky.

I don't take a deep breath.
I don't count down from 3.
I shake my head at the depressingly predictable nature of all of this.
Every.
Fucking.
Time.
Oscar Wilde bitterly comes to me and I remember that a good woman loves nothing so much as cruelty. Normally, I'd just chalk this up to the game.....but I am not good humored in this moment.
I'm fucking tired of the wolves at the door chasing my woman and her inability to rebuff them as quickly as I'd like. I let my anger slip in the driver's seat because he will handle it more clearly and directly and it's easier than admitting this hurts me and my sense of self.

I get up and put my pants on
I don't fucking need this shit.
She pops up and grabs my wrists, begging me to stay.
I take my hands from her grip and run my fingers through my hair and her eyes plead with me and she throws her arms around my waist like a small child begging me to stay.

In this moment, it's desperation and I don't fucking care and I can feel my anger forcing me to let her go and whatever I felt for her before fades into the back of my mind and the old armor of apathy wraps around my chest and I know that I was right earlier in the evening when I accepted I could still be with her but that my feelings would change and part of me would have to withdraw it's extension of care for her.
----
We wake up at the same time.
I feel better and the anger seems fleeting and distant, at least in this pleasant moment.
"Don't ever leave me like that," she whispers as she nuzzles her face in my neck and shoulder.
I take her in my arms but I do not respond because I know it will happen but somehow with her I know it will be permanent when I do.
I don't have it in me to bluff anymore.
I've gotten lazy in my old age.
If she needs me to leave to truly respect me, when the door shuts my feelings will not return with me and that will be as they say "that".
---

Good luck and happy hunting,
        - Yrs. in Christ