"You run from your problems."

"So what? Why do you care?"

"I care because you run away from me."

He gave her a look. "You know why."

"Of course I know why. You and I can't be together. I know. I don't to be reminded."

He closed his eyes. "Then so be it."

"Why are you just letting this happen?"

"This is what I wanted."

"You never wanted me."

"Not true."

"Oh, well sorry, Mister Sarcastic, but you never acted like you really did."

"I could make multiple references to times I acted very much like I wanted to be with you, but that never stays the same from day to day."

"Why can it never be, Noah?"

He shrugged his shoulders, then rose from his position from the ground. He wandered over to the window near the desk, looking at the notes and scribbled doodles which blew asunder the paper's free sections. "Because neither of us are good for each other."

"I try to make everything okay."

"But I don't want to make everything all right, okay?" He spun around and strode towards her. She shrunk away from him when he approached. He felt bad that he needed to resort this, but she was so incessant: he didn't want to be here at all, but she kept him here. There was nothing left here in this room that made him want to stay. Nothing. Not even her.

"Okay," she responded meekly.

"Understand that please."

"But why should I when you never understand me?"

"I swear to God," he said, and his fists closed in, but he breathed through his nose. Don't do it, Noah. There's no reason to let it all go right now. She doesn't deserve this, you know this, you know it, dude. "I do. I listen to you but you never stop."

"I do stop."

"Hmm, but I can show you where you didn't – hell, I wanted to be done and gone by now, but you've kept me here! Let's look at the time." He whipped out his phone – he had wanted to be on this since he had come over, because this is where he could escape. But he was trapped while he was with her, so he quickly glanced at the time, exclaimed, "Hey, it's 1:34 AM, Penelope," and pushed it back into his pocket, ready for when he was truly well and able to spend time with it. "We've been arguing for more than two hours. I'm out of here, man, I'm not doing this anymore."

He walked over to his backpack, and slid it over his shoulder, but when he glanced over his shoulder after grabbing his charger and keys off her desk, he noticed that she was crying. Tears slid down her face like the Niagra Falls, and he hadn't wanted to feel like this tonight. Truly, he wished to be done with her games. But seeing her like this? He had done this. This is what he had caused, throughout all the fights, all the little moments where he would go out of his mind and yell and scream at the top of his lungs because that's how he knew how to handle situations with her, there was nothing else which had sedated her, so he yelled and yelled and yelled, and it never works, it never worked before, and it still hadn't now, so why why why does he feel like he needs to?

There's not a moment in his mind where he does not feel conflicted. This is among the string, so he threw down his backpack, sighed until all the air in his lungs were exerted, then wrapped his arms around her tightly, making cooing sounds and whispering under his breath that everything is fine, everything's okay, even if inside, he's breaking. He always knew how to make her feel better, especially by giving her what she wanted, but he just let it be – she would fine if he let her sit there. They'd be fine.

"You won't leave me tonight?" she asked.

"I have a home to be at," he replied.

She sniffed. "Noah..."

"What?"

"You know that I love you, right?"

"I know you do, Penny," he said.

"Then why do you hate me so much?"

He didn't know the answer to this question. He sat there for several moments, ruminating, but there was nothing which had appeared in his mind the chief culprit for his hatred and animosity. He had shrugged his shoulders, then, and told her, "I don't know."

"Why not?" she questioned further.

"I – please don't do this tonight," he asked her. "Please."

"Okay, okay... I don't like it when you beg."

"Well I don't like it when we argue all the time."

"Do you love me?" she asked out of the blue.

"Of course I do. But not in that way anymore."

"Oh..." She sniffed again, and the waterworks seemed as though they'd come in the next moment if he did not speak.

So he said, "For now, though, I'll lay with you. I'll stay the night."

Through her bleary eyes, he could spot some kind of hope he wished to squander, but he left it remain for now as he slipped into her bed, entangling himself with her arms, making the two of them one again – it'll just be tonight, he said to himself.

He knows it isn't just tonight.