Daily Story 109: Breaking Up

"What do you mean, you're not coming with me?" She's crazy. Emotional. Is this some woman thing, hormones or something? I could fix that, find a pill or something. Not that she'd let me. She's storming around the house with nowhere to go; she marches into the livingroom and pulls some of the wilting leaves off of the plants, then bursts into the kitchen and re-arranges the shelves. Anything to keep from facing me.

"Sharon, stop. It won't be bad, I promise - we can take anything sentimental with us and I'll replace the rest. I don't get what the big deal is - a lot of people have to relocate for work." Apparently I said something wrong, because she freezes in her tracks and turns to face me with a glare that sends goosebumps all up my arms.
"Relocate? You say it like we're just moving to the next town over! You know, I gave up a lot when I 'relocated' with you last time..."
"Like what? You had one friend you barely ever talked to and an abusive father." The words pop out before I can stop them, but luckily she's a terrible aim and so the priceless Ming vase flies past my right ear and shatters harmlessly against the wall.

"Maybe we would have reconciled!" she yells, reaching around for something else to throw and finding the model of Da Vinci's flying machine - made by the master himself. Ironically it barely makes it three feet before hitting the tile and snapping in half. She's got no respect for my antiques.
"Just... just come with me, we can talk about this later. You can't stay here, you know it."
She's crying, but when I try to put a hand on her shoulder she flinches away. "No. Just go, forget about me."
"Damn it, Sharon! I messed up on my last trip, okay? And the only way to fix it is to go back. The only way, Sharon, are you listening? I can't fix things here, and I can't do it without losing all this!" I wave my arms around like a crazy person, trying to indicate not just her or the mansion or the shelves of antiques, but our lives.

She shrugs. Shrugs! She wipes the tears off her cheeks, sits down on the couch, and does that obnoxious dismissive hand wave thing. "Just get it over with and go," she says, "you were lousy in bed anyway."
I'm so angry that I do it, I close my eyes and leave without her. I drop back five years to just before we got here and the timeline resets; we won't ever arrive now. Sharon is gone, just like that, and I can't get her back if I tried. We found that out after the first time we went backwards, found out that her birth wasn't part of the prime timeline and must have been because of something I had changed. I don't even know what. I stare at the vacant lot for a while, then jump to a bar somewhen to get hammered.