I sat up, watching the firmness of her back as she walked out of the room, my eyes rimmed with dark circles and narrow with drowsiness. I brought my hands up, burying my face in them, feeling my throat clench. Cold air seeped through the window, hitting my bare skin easily through the thin white blanket. After pulling on my clothes, I shut the window with a loud thud, lingering to stare at the starry night sky.

I couldn't do it anymore. I'd tried so hard to cling on to what we used to have, but it simply wasn't there anymore. Romantic kisses under starry night skies turned into forced ones under mattress sheets, bodies hugging for warmth turned into bodies moving for friction.

It was all so beautiful in the beginning. I'd never taken interest in Temari, but the day she came up to me with an innocent look and a promise of something more, I couldn't help but melt. Had that all been an act as well?

The first few months were great, but I now realize they were rushed for a reason. Long walks under the dancing stars, time wasted but well spent together. Our kiss was the second day, but I didn't complain. I wanted it as much as I thought she did. We held hands throughout the day, palms sweaty with nervousness that we could only fall in love with. She wrote deep things about me, giving me the wrinkled papers for me to treasure. And there they lay, hidden under a pile of junk in a wooden cabinet.

Those first few months, I thought I would marry her. But then things changed.

Temari loosened her act around me, turning into the scornful bitch she'd always been. She'd hidden it perfectly behind innocent eyes, songs scribbled for me, pictures taken with me, make-up hiding true colors. She started drama that was immature, starting petty fights with Ino simply because she was the only female I tended to hang around with. She was my teammate, but Temari wouldn't have any of that. If it were her choice, she would have packed my bags and dragged me to the Sand Village.

The stars I stared at reminded me perfectly of those first few kisses.

I turned and walked to my disheveled bed, sitting on the edge. I propped my elbows on my knees and rested my forehead on my hands, pushing away strands of dark hair.

We weren't together to be together. We weren't together for the right reasons. Not to wake up to each other's smiles, to spend the day together, and to end the day with each other on our minds and in our hearts. We were together for the wrong reasons.

It felt like an obligation to wait for Temari at night, and watch her leave after she got what she wanted.

"Making love," but there was no love about it.

I admit that I missed it. The relationship that lonely people sung about. The relationship where finger's intertwined in a way of a connection, where hearts bonded over silly things, were everything simply felt right, nothing troublesome about it. Now, everything was a routine, forced and rushed and unwanted. I wanted her to leave right when she came.

She'd leave, her back always turned to me, uttering not a single 'goodnight' or an 'I love you.'

This made my head throb. I wanted it to end. I wanted her to fall asleep in my arms, the distance between us nothing but a few steps. I didn't want what we had now.

"Are you having a good time, sweetheart?"

Her strained words ran through my head, making me close my eyes tight. No, but did she care?

It was all an act. She gets what wants, and breaks what she gets. Slowly, she was tearing me to pieces.

I got up, walked a few steps forward, and pulled the cabinet open, dumping all of its contents. Wrinkled but neatly folded papers, hearts and lovely words scribbled furiously on it. Pictures with a happy couple that once was. Songs that she'd written; songs that I'd grown sick of writing.

If the first step was too difficult, I'd move on to the next. Erasing her from my life, and leaving her miles and miles away.

My hands could easily carry the scraps of paper. As I began to leave, I looked back at my mattress sheet. White, but scarred with cherry red lipstick that never tasted the way it looked. Silently, I grabbed that too and walked down the dark hall and outside to my back yard.

It was cold out, but the fire kept me warm. One by one, I tossed the scraps of memories I wished I could keep, until everything was in flames, slowly disappearing, and the ache in my head going with it. I crossed my arms, wishing for a shirt, staying close to the fire, until it began to dull away.

I'd gone through the second step easily. Now to put an end to this make-believe relationship.

This is it, this is the end.

And this is the last time I chant this without purpose.

As I walked inside, planning to depart to the Sand Village the next day, I was glad she was miles and miles away, glad she would have to clean up the messes she made and the pieces she's broken.