Die Slow Over the Months

The last few months together with her were rough. I wasn't happy with myself, and she wasn't happy with me, which made me unhappy with her. Nowadays, she'd say she never felt pretty, that she didn't feel good about herself, but I doubt she ever lost her feelings of pride, her sweet little vanity. I never begrudged her vanity. If anyone had it justified, it was her.
I argue with myself about how long we kept it going after it was dead. We each tried to end it so many times, that by the end it had stopped affecting me. It was only when things were okay, when we weren't fighting and she said she wanted out, that I ever took her seriously about it. The first time she wanted to leave me, I taught her a bad lesson. As soon as she said she thought she wanted out, laying on my bed, I got so scared of losing her I immediately recanted everything I was saying, every mean thing. I apologied, begged her to stay, did all that things that would show her that, from now on, if she wanted me to fall into line all she had to do was bust out the "I don't want to be with you anymore" line, and I'd snap to. The last time she tried it before things were over, I didn't even blink. She stormed out of my truck and was going to walk home to Santa Ana, I suppose. Suffice to say, she wasn't following me into the house (we were really good, especially near the end, at getting a good disagreement going during the ride between me picking her up and going to wherever we were going). I let her go. I said,
"If you want to start acting like an adult, feel free to come back in."
I didn't turn to follow her, I wasn't going to chase her like every other time she pulled the same stunt. Every. Other. Time. And as soon as that trick didn't work anymore, as soon as I refused to tag along after her, begging her for attention and approval, for sense and civility, she left. I don't think she had any control over me past that. Certainly everything else I did proved that.
Was it three months before it ended that I'd lost interest? When did I start thinking about leaving? When did I decide to stop thinking about it?
We went biking one night, me desperately trying to find something she wanted to do without her telling me. That was part of the game that was our relationship, trying to figure out what was going to make that woman happy. We made it about four blocks away from the house and started arguing about something. I don't remember what, which says more than if I remembered what it had been about. Anyway, we were screaming in a crowded neighborhood relatively late at night. She was on a shitty bike, and so was I, and I started to head back, with her still berating me the whole way, and me saying,

"I know you think you're going to be able to take this all back when you calm down, but not this time. Not this fucking time. I'm not going to get over this."

Then she was really laying into me. I called her a cunt. I spat at her. I would have done anything to shut her up.
On the care ride back to her house, wanting her to get the hell away from me, wanting it to be over, I didn't say anything at all. After being on the freeway for a little bit, her it comes:

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Do you forgive me?"

And before she even gets to the last word:

"FUCK YOU. I TOLD YOU THIS WAS IT. I TOLD YOU THERE WAS NO GOING BACK, AND I MEANT IT. NOT THIS FUCKING TIME. FUCK YOU!"

She didn't say anything after that. We rode to her house, and when I stopped to let her out she started her textbook last stand. She never tried to work anything out when it would have mattered. When it would have meant anything. I got the silent treatment until we were at her house, and then the tears would start, and the arguing about who was right and why we shouldn't be fighting anymore, then the driving around the block so her parents wouldn't see us fighting outside, or so that she didn't have to worry about it, or some other thing. It was always the same thing, and I always did it the same, because I loved her.
But I dropped her off, I told her to get out of the car and I didn't look back. I was really done. She'd just gone too far. Been cruel and careless, and I'd had enough.
And she says it was six months from the end, a year from it, that she started to feel like she wanted out. She says we were done long before we were done, that she didn't want me for the longest time before she ever actually did anything about it. She says that she just didn't like me anymore, now that it doesn't matter if I felt that way or not. Now that I don't care anymore. Now that's she's killed that in me. Hell, I should have figured that just from her fucking.
So she called me, of course, and we hung up on each other over and over again, of course. Same old rigamarole. Going through the motions. This time, though, I was going to stick to my guns. I was going to get out, because I just couldn't take it anymore.
And she kept calling. And I asked why.

"Because I neeeeed you."

The "need" was a long, sobbing sound. I hear it in my head now, months later, just as clearly as I did then. It was the most pleading, desperate thing I had ever heard. I think that's what changed my mind. I think that's what made me come back, what made me finally cave under my own resolve. I asked her a few times during the conversation to give me some time to think, which she did. In the end, we made up, like always. The wheels kept spinning, the plane would level off momentarily, and the plummet towards the slow death that awaited me would be postponed for a little while longer.
Maybe it was only a month or so before the breakup that I felt like I wanted out. Maybe only a couple of weeks, but then the job made things better. I really wanted to see her that week, wanted to start rebuilding.
She didn't neeeeed me. I don't know if she ever did. She didn't want to be with me then anymore than she did when she ended it.
She just wanted to be the one to pull the trigger.