Apology.

I'm sorry, she said.

Why, he wanted to know.

I'm sorry for not loving you enough, I'm sorry for loving you once and then not at all, I'm sorry that when I talk to you I'm bored out of my fucking mind and I want to scream and run, run as fast as I ever did or ever will, and never see your face again. I'm sorry that I hide it and pretend you're my friend when you're not, you're really not, because you don't laugh at friends when they're not looking, you don't secretly sneer at them, you don't despise them, you don't look into their faces and wonder how you could have ever loved them, wonder where the person you used to love has gone (has he travelled very far?), wonder what kind of a person you were when you did love them and be thankful, so thankful, that you'll never be that person again. 

Oh, he said.

And I'm sorry for the part of me that still believes I love you, that still clings on to the things-that-used-to-be, and which could be love, just a sort of love I didn't know existed. 

No, he said. That's not love. 

It might be, she said. And that's another reason I'm sorry.