“I need time to think” I told her one day.
“Think about what?” She asked me. She was looking at me as if she loved me, which I guess she did. That may be why I knew it would be so hard to say what was coming up next.
“I need some time to think about us” I said it. But still, it didn’t feel right. No matter how many times I’d said this sentence over the past year, it never really felt right.
She didn’t flinch, she didn’t cry, she didn’t hit me and she didn’t run away. I guess she was used to it too.
“How much time do you need?” She sounded annoyed, but I knew she wasn’t. She was just desperate.
“I don’t know, only time will tell” I felt like such a loser for choosing the easy way out of the situation. But still…
“That’s a stupid answer” She said looking down at the ground.
And she was right.
But still…
“Well I guess I’m a stupid guy”
I was right.
And then I walked away. As I took one last look back, I saw her standing there, waiting.
I knew she’d always be there, just waiting for me to come around.

*****************************

She gave me the watch one week later. It was round and silver. It didn't look quite new, but it didn't look old either. It just looked like a watch that had been through alot.
“Why for?” I asked her curiously. I’d asked for a break; she hadn’t cried, she hadn’t screamed and now she was giving me a gift. Was something wrong with the girl?
“Take all the time you need”
She was smiling. Why wasn’t she sad? Why wasn’t she crying? Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t want her too, but still it was weird that she wasn’t.
I looked at the watch for a whole minute, but the needles didn’t move.
“It’s broken” I said simply, handing it back to her.
“No it’s not” She said.
“Then what is its problem?”
“I guess it got tired of waiting”
And then she walked away.
She didn’t look back. If she had; she’d seen me standing there: waiting for her to come back and say it was all some prank gone wrong.
But she never did come around.
I tried going to different jewelry shops to try and get the watch fixed. But they all said the same thing, one after the other:
“You know kiddo, sometimes; things are just broken beyond repair”