“I’m sorry,” he replied, crying too. “I have to. Please understand. If we didn’t have this ocean between us I would want to be with you all the time. I may even want to marry you.”

“Don’t say that!” Keira wailed. “You’re just making it worse.”

Shane exhaled loudly. “I need you to know how much you mean to me, Keira. I don’t want you to think that I just got cold feet or something. If we weren’t at this impasse I wouldn’t be doing it at all. It’s not what I want. Not even slightly. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Keira replied, her tears falling bitterly from her eyes. She understood loud and clear. The man of her dreams, a man who loved her and made her laugh every single day, was giving up on her just because things were a little complicated. The man she’d fallen so deeply in love with during the most transformative month of her life was giving up at the first hurdle. He wasn’t going to put the hard work into their relationship after all. The thoughts swirled bitterly in Keira’s mind.

“So I guess this is goodbye?” she said, coolly.

Shane must have picked up on her sudden dejected tone. “Don’t be like that,” he said. “We can stay in touch. We can be friends. There’s always social media. It’s not like I’m cutting you out of my life entirely.”

“Of course,” Keira replied, heavyhearted, knowing that even with the best of intentions, once-loving relationships rarely if ever successfully turned into platonic friendships. It just didn’t work that way. Once love was lost, it was gone, at least in Keira’s experience.

“Are you mad at me?” Shane asked, his voice sounding small and fragile.

“No,” Keira replied, realizing it to be true. Shane’s reasons for ending it were noble. He was putting his family first. They were exactly the type of qualities she needed from a partner, so it would be a bit unfair of her to begrudge him it. “I think you should go and be with your family now,” she added. “Give everyone a hug from me, will you?”

“Okay,” Shane replied.

Keira wasn’t sure, but she got the distinct impression from the way he said it that he knew she wasn’t expecting to ever speak to him again. He sounded crushed.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Goodbye, Keira,” Shane said finally.

Before she had a chance to reply, the call went dead. She removed her phone from her ear and stared at it in her hand. How could such a small chunk of metal and computer chips cause her to feel like the entire world had fallen away beneath her feet? How could one conversation turn her life upside down? She felt like every ounce of happiness she’d ever felt had been sucked through the phone’s speakers and spat out into some black abyss, never to be seen again.

And worst of all, Keira couldn’t even be angry. Shane hadn’t been a jerk like every other boyfriend she’d broken up with had. There was no cheating, no lying, no screaming matches or deliberate below the belt punches. Perhaps that was why it hurt so much more. Perhaps it was because she’d let herself get carried away thinking Shane could be the One, that anyone could be the One.