I set the keys on the kitchen ledge and beg myself not to look at her, only listening as her footsteps tread further inside.
                          
"Well, we'd only been here a week before you left, so I mostly just unpacked..."
                          
This feels wrong. Off. She doesn't belong here anymore, but she makes herself seem like she does. She carries herself like she does. Walking though my home so confidently. Setting her bag on the coffee table like she used to. Sitting in her designated spot on the couch as her eyes continue to look over my walls and photos with a small smile.
                          
It pisses me off.
                          
"So?" I cross my arms. "You wanted to see me for what? What's the reason."
                          
Her face drops and her tongue seems to stumble over whatever sorry excuse she's conjuring up. "I just, I missed you Abel. Like I said." Her brows bunch as her hands retract into her sleeves. "I can't just come see you?"
                          
"After a whole fucking year of ignoring me? After walking out on me without even the decency—the courtesy of giving me a valid reason why? No, Shyla. You don't get to just show up at my door after I've finally fucking moved on."
                          
"Moved on?"
                          
Her question was like an echo of my own thoughts.
                          
Did I mean that? Did I really move on after just one little forbidden kiss with a sweet, timid student of mine who looked at me in a way Shyla never, ever had?
                          
Maybe I did.
                          
"Yeah. Haven't you? I mean, isn't that what you went off to do? To find better than me, even though I spent every dime I had just to try and make you happy. I poured all of my money into giving you everything you told me you wanted, and I still somehow came up short."
                          
"I know, Abel. I know, I just..." her eyes fall to my feet. I can sense the incoming crying fit she's about to throw herself into and it makes my skin crawl.
                          
I really used to fall for this shit?
                          
"I..." She gasps as the first two tears race down her face and I ball my face up in disgust. "I just...I didn't know what to do."
                          
"About?"
                          
She barely shrugs, leaning forward into her sleeve covered palms and begins to sob. All I can do is shake my head to myself.
                          
Shyla never had a valid reason for leaving me, and that was fine. I came to terms with it months after she were gone. Months after I finally realized her coming back was only a fantasy, and wouldn't be a reality.
                          
A person doesn't need a good reason to stay with someone, but they do need a reason to return, and I'm ready to hear it.
                          
I lean against my wall until she runs out of energy, her sobbing dulling down to a light sniffling when she finally lifts her red, splotchy face to me again.
                          
I raise an arched brow, feeling like I'm in class again. "You done?"
                          
"You're cold," she tells me with a hard expression, sitting pitifully on my sofa. 
                          
Immaturity. That's what it was.
That's what was turning me off times ten the longer I looked at her.
                          
Shyla was immature. She was spoiled. She was manipulative as hell, and I don't know why I never saw it until right here, right now.
                          
"Look, Shy. It was nice seeing you tonight, but you're right. You really should've called first. Then I would've had the chance to tell you not to bother coming here."
                          
She laughs humorlessly, her brows raised as she swipes away the last crocodile tear. "Wait. Is this coming from the guy who left me two hundred voicemails in just two days, begging me to call him back? The same guy who sent me video collages of us, sent roses and candy to my mom's house, and called my parents asking for ways to get me back?"
                          
"That's not me anymore. You should leave."
                          
"Seriously?"
                          
"Dead fucking serious. You showed me who you really were and I thank you for that, because now I know you did me a huge favor."
                          
She scoffs at my words, shaking her head at my floor. "Wow, and here I was thinking I made a mistake." She glances up at me. "I did. You loved me in a way no one else ever had and I just let you go."
                          
"The world still turns." I shrug, my fists tightening under my elbows.
                          
It's crazy. This is everything I wanted to happen for over a year now. Even months ago, I would've been elated to see Shyla crying and asking for me back. Admitting her mistake. I'd have went and packed her bags for her, rearranged the house to her liking. Carried her over the fucking threshold. But tonight, I'm completely numb to it all.
                          
Her tears. Her words. Her face.
                          
I could never see her again and be completely satisfied.
                          
I guess that's healing.
                          
"You're an asshole."
                          
"No, you're an asshole." I give her a tight smile. "You don't just fucking abandon someone you supposedly love for an entire year."
                          
She pops up from the sofa like a spring. "You wouldn't let me breathe, Abel! I was suffocated, you were clingy and needy and I couldn't take it anymore!"
                          
"Because I sensed you leaving!"
                          
The words left me with fury. It was like an explosion, a relief. Especially to see the look in her eyes when it did. The realization that I wasn't as oblivious as she thought I was.
                          
I swallow and lower my voice. "I felt it coming months before it actually happened and I was desperately trying to get you to stay with me, Shyla. But it didn't matter what I did, did it? You never really loved me. Even now. You just love the way I love you. You love yourself."
                          
And then it happens. She looks away and an honest tear falls straight from the corner of her eye.
                          
"You're spoiled," I say dully. "You're entitled. You're fucking mean, and quite frankly, you are every quality I hate in a human being. I'm better than settling for someone like you. So thank you for leaving me, and I genuinely wish you the best of luck in life."
                          
She left after that. I didn't even have to open the door for her, she swung it herself and left the house with a slam that rattled my walls.
                          
That rattled me.
                          
I didn't know I had that in me. I didn't even know that's how I truly felt, but my mouth was on autopilot and it felt good to get it all out.
                          
The hollow feeling afterward was bittersweet. Letting her go meant freeing up a whole lot of space inside of me. A new void. Space that's vulnerable and eager to be filled.
                          
I flop down on my sofa, sitting the opposite side Shyla had just sat, and glance over at the cushion, still slightly imprinted by her weight.
                          
I'm moving on.