Infatuated.

The first few months of the relationship are always perfect. Infatuation claims every part of the mind, throwing its victims into a euphoric state of wonder. They're amazed by the discovery of this emotion called love - or a version damn near enough for them to call it that. They've fallen head-over-heels. They're overwhelmed.

Annoyed.

After that, it starts to settle down. And little things can bother the two. Habits that each once found charming about the other now seem annoying. Mild comments that once would have slipped by unnoticed, if they escaped the mouth at all, now strongly irritate them. Pressure sets in. Things happen that shouldn't be happening. And they start to develop a concern that should not be present in a relationship. The concern for other people's opinions.

Desperate.

What will their friends think now that they've been together for so long? Assumptions will start to fly that the two have done some things that they may not have even thought of doing. Rumours crack the shield of strength that the couple has so carefully constructed around each other, and eventually, if issues between the young lovers are not discussed, they begin to fall apart. Splitting from within the circle. The special bond that they've learned to share dissolves.

Torn.

From there it's as fragile as the shell of an egg. The smallest crack can shatter everything, unless they have some damn fine verbal Super-Glue. The wonderful mentality she has built up inside herself will crumble, and she'll fall back down into the dark recesses of depression. He'll return to his world, wherever it was before her, occasionally flirting it up with a girl but holding back for fear that he is wrong in doing so. He'll move on. Before her. Without her.

Hopeless.

Everything's changed. They were friends before. She doesn't understand why they cannot be so now, but for some reason, he fears her words, and she fears his reactions to them. Their conversations, however brief, strained, and necessary they are, can always get worse, and instead of the slight comfort of the occasional quarrel, they now have the harsh reality of an omnipresent silence.

Gone.

Now there's nothing. Nothing left to be saved. No contact. When she reaches out to him, her fingers touch thin air. When her tears come, he is not there to surround her with his arms and a kind of wordless comfort. When he tosses awake at night, she is not beside him to inquire about his nightmare, to snuggle into his chest and lull him back to sleep with her light breathing. The hour that separates their lives has stretched to accommodate another million years, and the four feet of space in the hall is vaster than the blackness of space. When they brush past each other, they are nothing more than two victims of selective amnesia, both blocking out memories which they really want nothing more than to cherish.

But it's gone. Their history together is gone, remembered only as a few wasted moments of their lives. Two lives that they were willing to combine at one time. That moment has since faded, sunk deep into the dark, black waters of the past. And far from the coast of that shore, their future is facing a firing squad.

It's gone. Everything's gone. Nothing's left.
Nothing but the RESET key.