Wish You Were.

They're packing up boxes, compartmentalizing memories and their various physical reminders by what belongs to whom -- memories can be shared; their physical ties to actuality, on the other hand, can't. With each new item, each revisited memory, there's an accompanying flurry of activity; some animated reminder of some half-forgotten day, a civilized tug-of-war over something neither wants to see land in the hands of the other.

"Remember The House in the Woods?" He chuckles, carefully wrapping some artifact of memory in bubble wrap before placing it in the box in front of him. Only then turns his eyes to meet hers, after it's been packed with the care and love one normally reserves for tucking an only child into bed. "The one we thought was haunted?"

Her laughter is colored with sadness; a slow, melancholy blue that strains in the air long after the laughter itself has died. Even if he doesn't remember, doesn't foresee where this memory will take them, she knows before she even opens her mouth. "You dared me to go and knock on the door, one Halloween."

She recognizes the second he remembers how this story ends, can see it in his eyes. The dilation of his pupils reacting to a flare of light from the movie screen in his mind. Watches him struggle for words before giving him an out, and continuing it herself, allowing him to skip a turn without penalty. "The first time you kissed me, as I recall. After I'd sprinted back to your safe little hiding place."

He flushes under the weight of the memory, clearly sheepish over the reminder of his youthful exuberance. "Well, I figured if you were brave enough to risk your life, I was brave enough to admit I'd had a crush on you since forever."

"Funny," she says, not unkindly. Teasingly, even. With the warmth of years of familiarity and intimacy. "I always thought you were just so damn happy I was alive."

Their teasing turns serious, in this instant; he abandons his work to look her full in the face. With a start, she realizes how second nature it's become, avoiding his gaze. "I was. You were my best friend, woman."

Best friends from childhood's screaming, red-faced races through the woods straight through to college's screaming, red-faced drunken stumbles. Until one warm-blooded night, when they'd given in to years of sticky heat, and decided to put to test exactly how much of love is desire.

They'd been together ever since.

That is, until now.

"I know." They're silent now; no bickering over what means more to whom, or who is more deserving of which memory. As if they've suddenly realized, and can't deny, how communal the pool of their memories truly is. Nothing that belongs to him doesn't belong as much to her. Nothing she can claim for her own hasn't played as vital a role in his life as it has in hers.

"Are we really ready to call this quits?" He gestures to the chaos around them; an entire lifetime together suddenly reduced to the relationship equivalent of ashes and rubble. Divvying up assets like two children sent to different corners of the room to play, because they can't play nicely together anymore. This, then, the consequence of their childish tantrums. "We're really done?"

She puts down the candlestick she's wrapping, a housewarming gift from her parents. "What else is there?" Her eyes are bright with tears; he resists the urge to nudge her hard enough for them to spill over. Instead, he just watches her; the restless russet wave to her hair, the ever-watchful eyes like nightfall, the summery tint to her skin, the indistinct fragility in the curve of her spine. He knows every concavity of her body, the punctuated succinctness of its elegant lines. He grew up watching those curves flesh out in tandem with his own cannonball into puberty.

He knows that she wakes every Saturday during the spring months, elated to have sunlight pouring in through their oversized windows. Knows she waits for those months all year 'round, for there's nothing she likes better than to rearrange her limbs to fit into that square of warmth and brightness, and to sleep there until the tilt of the earth forces her incubator into cool shade.

Knows that the last thing she does before bed, before joining him beneath the covers, is cast a long, searching look at her make up-less reflection in the mirror -- the only time of day she's ever really fresh-faced and youthful yet again.

And he isn't willing to surrender that knowledge to another man, not yet. "We can try harder."

"Baby." Lover. Mate of my soul. Other half of me. "If we get out now, we can get out amicably. Without losing --"

"Us. I know." He's heard it before, the finality in her voice, the stringent necessity she sees in jumping while they're still high enough to employ parachutes, in hopes of a safe landing. Bail while there's still something left to salvage, because it's the wreck you can't walk away from with all parts intact. Before point of impact, it's safer. Less of a gamble. Less likely you'll leave something of yourself in the wreckage. "But I love you."

"And I love you." The syllables are more a breathless expulsion of air than spoken words. "But love --"

"Isn't all you need." Still finishing each other's sentences, some part of one always in communication with the other. An eerie insistence on their minds' part, that they never really be far from one another. He casts a surveying look around, makes a decision, steels himself. "I think I'm done. The rest is yours."

She widens her eyes. "But -- no. There's so much else you wanted. The photo albums, the ..." She trails off because he's shaking his head, calmly. Collectedly. "You don't want them anymore?"

"You keep 'em." He gathers the last box up in his arms, gestures with a tilt of his head for her to throw her jacket over it. "Amicable's our aim, right? So, I'll be around if I ever feel like a trip down memory lane. With you, or with me; it's all the same."

Funny, the naivety adults find themselves clinging to. As if matters of the heart can ever end amicably. As if memories can ever be shared without strife.  As if you ever recover from the straight-armed shove from love back into friendship.

As if you ever survive love at all.