The characters Ed and Emily are both troubled people who can't handle losing the person they love. Concluding losing their loved ones, they decide to kill him, although Ed doesn't kill his ex Terri, he threatens to do so. Emily murders her lover to prevent him from leaving her. Ed threatens to kill his ex in order to scare her into staying, but when that doesn't work, he commits suicide, not being able to live without her. Both characters show signs of mental illness or just being unstable. An example of this is in "A Rose For Emily", in paragraphs 26-28, it talks about how Emily would not let the townspeople bury her father. It is said: “She told them that her father was not dead” (406). Emily clearly wasn't able to cope with her father's death, she didn't want to let him go. Another example of how characters are shown to be unstable is found in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." In this short story it says: “Terri said the man she lived with before Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her. Then Terri said, “He beat me one night.” He dragged me into the living room by my ankles. He kept saying, 'I love you, I love you, bitch'" (411) The characters in both stories showed signs of being unable to cope