I know it’s unfashionable, but I think there’s something worthwhile in asking someone to stay. In laying down your pride and saying, “you know what? my ego doesn’t matter anymore, because I’d rather lose an argument than lose you.” There is something in saying “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you close and I won’t let go.”

If you love somebody so much that you’re willing to devote hours of your life every day to talk to them, to thinking about the things that they said, buying cute presents or making them food, or listening to entire albums that you know they love, is it really so difficult to swallow your pride and say “no, I can’t watch you leave. Stay. I want you to stay.” Is it really so impossible to cast aside your stubbornness; your, “leave if you want to, I won’t stand in your way” and replace it with honesty? Because if the truth is you want to beg, you want to cry, you want to say “goddamnit I have never ever felt this way about another person and I know if you leave you’ll leave behind an empty mess,” then that’s love, right?

Some people are meant to go. It doesn’t matter what you say, they’ll be on the next train out of town. But some people are waiting for you to say you care too much to let them leave in silence. And if you let them go make sure you do it consciously. Pride means nothing in the long run.