"Nikki..."
"I'm sorry, Ike! It's only been three days and already I'm going crazy. I miss you!"
"Nikki, I can't come back home, right now. I'm sorry. I do have to put food on the table."
"Get another job!"
"Now, really. Be serious!"
"I am serious!" Nikki wailed. "I can't be without you. Come home!"
"Nikki, you're being ridiculous. We've gone three days without seeing or speaking to each other before."
"But that was different. You weren't half the world away. I could have visited at any time."
"Nikki, you knew before we dated that I was a musician, and I went on tours and recorded albums and stuff. I love you, but if this is going to be a problem..."
"Are you breaking up with me?"
"I think the question is, are you going to break up with me? Because I'm not going to put my career on hold because were dating," Isaac replied.
"Ugh! Why not?"
"Because this is a part of my life, and if you can't handle it while we're dating, there's no way you'd handle it if anything got really serious between us."
"If anything got really serious between us, I could be with you."
"And would you give up your career to do so? I don't see you doing that now."
Silence. Isaac sighed.
"I do love you Nikki," he assured her. "I'd like to make this work, but you have to want to make it work too. Why don't you use this time to figure that out?"
About half an hour later, Isaac finally got off the phone.
"Interesting conversation there," Zac said, obviously amused.
Isaac gave him a look.
"Break up again?"
"Yeah."
"That sucks. These on/off relationships don't work, y'know."
"Well, you would know."
"Ner," Zac said, poking his tongue out at him.