She kept telling herself to just ignore it. She let it stay in her guest room, she fed it, she even split the bills with it, but never did she acknowledge it. It was a burden.

But one day she just couldn't discount it any longer and so Susie did the unthinkable... she knocked three times.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure..."

"Hey..." Susie crept in. "I was just wondering how long you'll be staying here for?"

"I forget..." it sniggered.

Susie raised a finger, annoyed at her tenant's subtle rudeness, before deciding to just back out of the room. After all, she did have a date tonight for Valentines.

"So what do you think?"

Susie was wrapped up in her lover's arms on her sofa after a romantic evening facing perhaps the greatest dilemma of her adult life. "I... I... don't know..."

"Oh come on! It makes perfect sense! Heck, if you don't want to sleep in the same room as me, I can just stay in your guest room!"

"I just don't know if we're ready to move in together yet, you know?"

"No I don't know, Susan! We've been together for years now, we're madly in love, why can't we live together?!"

"BECAUSE OF IT, MARK!"

"It?" Mark lifted his arm from her shoulder and reached for the bottle of wine.

"Yes... it's staying in my guest room at the moment."

"What like a backpacker or something?"

"Yeah... sort of...." Susie took the wine from Mark and drank straight from the bottle.

"Well how long have they been here for? Why have I heard nothing about thi-"

"11 years."

Mark drew silent, his eyes lingering at the top of the staircase, "11... fucking.... years? What is it a guy, are you two-?"

"No, no, no! We've barely spoken..."

"Well he's been here longer than I've been in your fucking life for apparently!"

"No Mark it's not like that..." Susie slipped off of the sofa and sobbed pathetically.

Mark pushed her aside as he ascended the staircase droning out curses, "...gonna stick that backpacker's trunk so far up his fucking ass... won't move in with me.... stupid bitch....."

Susie knocked three times for the second time that one fateful day. Her face was red, tired, and broken. "He left me because of you..."

"Actually, he left because of you..." the unorthodox tenant spoke. "He saw nothing of me, because I am nothing to him."

Susie shook her head in disbelief.

"I will never forget what got you here today, 'Susan'. Nor will I ever let you forget."

"I knew you were just in my head... I knew I was going nuts..."

"Yes, yes. For I have a permanent vacancy up there just like I do in here, your humble home. Change is all well and good, but certain things can never be forgotten and some people will never learn how to let go."

Susie searched around her cabinet, dampening her miscellaneous bits and bobs with her falling tears. "This ends here!" She reached for something sharp...

"Go on. Do it. You will remain, I will remain, and together we will haunt these halls. Forever."

The tenant watched the blade fall to the floor and the girl soon followed. He stomped his foot heavily in horrid delight. "Some of these stories end in love and happily-ever-after-ness, others end in tragedy. Because love is all, both good and bad, it can always go one of two ways. When you have a past like yours, the present can be unfortunate, and you will never make it to the future by ignoring the elephant in the room."

Before we criticize this love story for ending in tragedy, let us remember Romeo & Juliet for example.