Yesterday I read some of my diary from last year. I think I've changed a lot. But anyway.

I just typed up this story I wrote on February 5th, 2009 and tried to keep myself from editing it. I may use parts one day-- I'm not posting it because it's complete or good, but because it fascinates me how my stories sometimes end up coming true. I wrote this in February of last year, and didn't have any of the same feelings as either character. One February later I felt like both of them. More strangenesses have occurred.

We were terrible in restaurants. We were out of things to say. We had told each other everything about ourselves, giving the pieces away slowly, knowing it was what was keeping us together-- that need to know someone as well as you think you know yourself.

Reading the menu took some time. Less for Scarlett for all she needed to do was find the vegetarian option. After a couple silent dinners in noisy restaurants I began reading the newspapers, hoping that if we couldn't talk about her, or me, or us, we could talk about the world at large.

"There are nine dead in Amsterdam from a Turkish flight."

"Oh?"

"Chris Brown beat up Rihanna."

"So?"

"They discovered that little girl's remains today."

"West, why are you always so morbid?"

It's true, dinners with me were like watching CNN on a sad day.

We stopped going out soon after that, instead eating frozen meals in front of the television, but never the news. Usually just talk shows where there are six possible fathers or babies who get to eat whatever junk they want.

There were times I tried to fill the quiet with kisses, distract both of our mouths.

We ended up giving each other the same head cold over and over. Scarlett complained that if she couldn't breathe through her nose she would need her mouth at all times. I was literally suffocating.

Then came the nights where Scarlett would crawl out of bed, pull her suitcase from the closet and put one thing in it. The first night it was just a pair of socks she dropped in. Then she closed the suitcase, put it away and got back into bed. The next night it was jeans, the next a bra, the next more socks. I never said anything. I think she was trying to let me get used to the idea that she wouldn't be around soon.

By the time her whole wardrobe was in two cases, I knew what I was going to say to her. She packed her last thing, a hairbrush, and stood in the doorway, letting the hall light slide in like spilt milk.

"Don't go. I'm not me when you're gone."