For the longest, I wondered what if I had walked away from that last argument. Would things have been different? Would we still be together? The answer, of course, is no. We would have stayed together another day, a week, maybe a month, but the end was as inevitable as the start. We were drawn to each other, needing each other really for our own separate and selfish reasons. We were destined to be together, but we weren’t destined to stay together. We were lovers before we had a chance to lay a foundation to build on, to become best friends. Without that, it was easy to take each other for granted, to push our wants and needs to the front of the line. No one would ever confuse our relationship as being built on compromise. Yet there was something there wasn’t there? Something that even long-lasting relationships don’t have. An electricity between us, an aura, that distinctive quality that seemed to surround and be generated by us being together. You could feel it; others could sense it; the way they would look at us, it was clear that two of us together were something special. But love does not last based on an aura. Love last when two people put in the time and effort to keep it alive. If two people genuinely love each other, if they don’t put in that effort, the aura will dim, the love will fade. For us, the effort was simply not there. It wasn’t our destiny to stay together, not in this life. But maybe our souls will cross in a future life, and we’ll get it right as I suspect we have done in past lives. Destiny simply can not be denied.