The characters Ed and Emily are both disturbed people who can't bear to lose the person they love. After losing their loved ones they decide to kill him, even if Ed doesn't kill his ex Terri, he threatens to do so. Emily kills her lover to prevent him from leaving her. Ed threatens to kill his ex to scare her into staying, but when that doesn't work he kills himself, unable to live without her. Both characters show signs of possible mental illness or simply being unstable. An example of this is in “A Rose for Emily”, in paragraphs 26-28 it talks about how Emily would not allow the people of the town to bury her father. It is said, “He told them that his father was not dead” (406). Emily was clearly unable to deal with her father's death, she didn't want to let him go. Another example of how characters show themselves to be unstable is 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 hit me one night.” He dragged me by my ankles around the living room. He kept saying, 'I love you, I love you, bitch'” (411) The characters in both stories showed signs of how they were unable to cope