She was sat at the table, fiddling nervously with the white cloth in her lap, folding and unfolding the corners again and again. She wasn't looking at him while he spoke. Instead, she looked down at his unfinished glass of wine, his hands wrapped too-tightly around the stem.

She knew this moment between them had to eventually come, but she didn't want to believe it. Even now as it was happening, she was running through every possible scenario in which this could end up playing out in her favor, despite knowing deep within her that it had to be futile.

"Her name is Anna, I want you to meet her" He said cautiously.

"You want me to meet her?" She scoffed.

"Yeah, of course. You're important to me." He said.

He may as well have spat in her face.

"You're important to me too. But I thought we were important to each other in a different way." She was almost whispering.

"I already told you before how I feel." His back straightened, his body language becoming slightly defensive.

She took a breath. And then another one. He didn't say anything while she watched him swirl his wine around in its glass. She was choosing her words carefully. She didn't want to overreact. She didn't want to draw attention to their table in the restaurant. The waiter stopped by their table during the silent stand-off and broke her from her trance.

As the waiter sauntered off, she finally looked up and met his eyes.

"You said you weren't ready for a relationship right now. When you said that, I thought you meant that maybe one day you would be. I thought you needed time. You kept sleeping at my house - in my bed. We kept having sex. We took trips together. You stayed up all night with me the night before my birthday and kissed me at midnight. We kept sharing secrets. We spent mundane days together that felt more like living than I have ever experienced before. You said you just needed a friend, but treated us like we were more - like we were something meaningful. It felt like every moment we spent together, you were becoming ready. And as it turns out, you were becoming ready. Just not for me. I was a placeholder until you found someone worthy."

"It wasn't like that" He interjected.

"It was like that. If it wasn't, you wouldn't have strung me along all of that time. How can you say that I am important to you? How can you say that, when you made me fall in love with you only to discard me the moment something better came along? And now you want me to meet her? Is that just to add insult to injury?"

He looked down at his lap and did not say anything.

"I am going to take a pass on meeting her. It wouldn't be right. Every time I would look at her face, I would be seeing the ghost of what could have been."

"I really would like to try to remain friends." He said without looking up.

Her body went rigid and he looked up to survey her face. Her eyes were an unsettling combination of anger and grief and he quickly averted his gaze.

"We have not been friends for a long time and I think you know that." She said coldly.

He stood up upbruptly at this statement and began to put on his coat. She kept her harderned gaze fixed on him, willing him to look her in the eyes.

But he didn't. He opened up his wallet and threw some cash on the table for their drinks, buttoned up his coat, and turned toward the door.

She waited until he was out of the building to let the tears slip. She wadded up the white cloth napkin and threw it onto the table, shattering his now empty wine glass. The couple at the nearby table jumped at the jarring sound and the waiter beelined to clean up the mess.

She didn't care. She sat there in silence for an hour longer until she finally donned her coat and walked out of the building. To this day, she has never really left that restaurant. She is still there.