Liz sat looking across the table at Hawk trying to digest what he said to her. He looked at her plainly as if there was nothing within him to show for what he had just told her. “I don’t love you Liz. We have known each other for months and I know you some but not the way that I should know you if I was going to love you. I am sorry.”

She looked down at the dinner that was before her. They had ordered their food and made small talk. Her heart had been hammering in her chest when he asked her to dinner and she thought maybe they would be back on track now. It had been such a bumpy road since March. Her world had turned over repeatedly in the short span of time right when she met him.

They had run into each other online and had clicked. Liz had felt there was something there something that just spoke to her about this man. They had started a strange affair of the mind online. They were both older so Liz was certain that she did not have to worry about the usual boyhood issues that younger men had and still went through.

“I want to call you. I think that we have been talking on the net long enough Lizzy. Let’s move this to the phone,” he had said one afternoon. He had been so sure of himself and of what he wanted from her. She was still so very nervous after her divorce but she relented and gave him her phone number. They talked on the phone for hours. Normal everyday stuff and then it happened. One tiny comment and they were having amazing phone sex.

She could hear it in his breathing that he was not faking it; her hands and thighs were soaked when they finished talking to each other that night. That is how time had moved for them. Another tragedy struck her life and she had to go and tend to it.

One night while it was happening she managed to get online and talk with him only to find out that he had a female house guest for a week; he had never hidden his lover from Liz but she still felt as if she was intruding in his life. “Liz, your fine. You’re not interrupting. Tell me what is going on, where are you and what is happening?”

She disappeared offline that night for three weeks. She didn’t know how to simply deal with the situation nor how to deal with the feelings that he was causing in her. She stayed out of contact with him but noticed that he stayed out of contact with her also. This saddened her greatly as she thought that she meant more then she did.

When she returned online they began talking again.

“I missed you Hawk. I am sorry that I left I just needed to go for a time,” she had said in their first conversation back.

“No, you didn’t need to go Liz but you did leave. I told you that the worst mistake that you could ever make would be to push me away. You do that and I allowed you enough rope to hang yourself with it,” he said calmly with no emotion.

Liz snapped out of the memories as Hawk said her name. She tried to focus on the present, what he was saying to her.

“Liz, I will always be your friend but I just don’t love you. I am sorry if that hurts you,” he continued to speak as her mind went back to the thoughts of the time that they had been together.

She remembered back to the first day that he had told her that he loved her. Her eyes had clouded over with emotion and she just sort of stared at him not wanting to make a big deal out it if he didn’t want her to. But she had kept his words close to her heart and took them out to look at whenever she was sad or down.

She knew that she was not like the other women in his life. She didn’t want to be the center of his world, only have a part of it. They moved into a comfortable ease with each other. They would see each other everyday and talk and chat. It was not as intense as before she left for the time away but it was fuller now. They had begun to talk of other things and as time moved forward the closeness that they had shared returned.

This time the separator was not her but another of the women in his life. They were having problems which made him distance himself from her. She tried very hard to be understanding and know that it was not her that he was upset with but it was the other person that he was upset with. This however, did not make things easier for her it only increased her problems and increased her heartache.

“Liz, I know that you and I can still be friends. I will be here to support you and be your guide when you need it. I know that you count on that from me and I would not take that away from you,” his words from the present rolled through her mind again as she looked at him. The memories continued to play in her mind as the tears that she wished would fall stayed carefully behind her eyes. She would not give into this hurt and the pain she would not disgrace herself before him.

It was their last conversation that should have made her classify him as simply a friend. He said that she should always call if things were bothering her whether he was at work or not. She had called him when she was having a really difficult day. She could hear it in his voice that he was just simply being polite. She asked if she could call him that night and his answer had been stilted. “Maybe, I don’t know, catch me online tonight and I will tell you if you can call,” had been his answer.

This conversation came only a few days after he had said to her that the time that she had coveted with him really had meant nothing to him it was just time. Even though she loved him he did not love her. It has stunned her; she sat in shock as he told her that she was not as precious to him as she had thought.

She finally pulled her mind back to the present. She looked at him; someone that she truly and cruelly loved. She had given her body to him many days and nights. She had thought that he understand that giving her body also meant that she was giving her heart as well. Somewhere along the way he did not see what as the case. Somewhere during their time together he had simply not realized how deeply in love with him she really was. She would stare at his pictures for hours, wondering what he was doing and where he was during the day.

“Hawk, I am not sure why you do not understand that I love you. I don’t understand why two mature thinking adults could not seem to find their way to each other. I don’t understand why you don’t feel that my loving you was enough. I don’t understand why you simply don’t know what you mean to me. I apologize that I was not clear enough in my heart and my words for you to understand me. But, I apologize, the most for not being able to simply fall at your feet like some love starved teenager. I am a mature woman. I have lived and loved. I don’t feel the need to just throw my emotions out into the winds and hope that someone catches them that knows what to do with them. I do thank you for showing me that I have more value then you have been giving me,” with those words Liz carefully placed down her linen napkin and collected her purse and smiled to the man that she had loved for almost a year.

Hawk sat and watched the woman that he had never really understood walk out of the restaurant and into the night.