The word echoed.
I could’ve argued.Could’ve told her about the ring I hadn’t bought yet.The future I’d been quietly building room for.I could’ve fought.Instead, I saw the tightness in her shoulders.The way her hands trembled despite her calm voice.This wasn’t about me.
Not entirely.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Her breath hitched.
“I won’t stop you,” I continued.“But I don’t believe this is out of nowhere.”
She closed her eyes.
“There’s more to whatever is going on in your head,” I stated firmly.
She didn’t answer.
I stepped aside, giving her space.“Take what you need.”
She gathered her things quickly while inside I silently shattered.She was efficient.Like she couldn’t afford to linger.At the door, she hesitated.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered but never wavered.
“So am I,” I replied the truth.
She left.
I stood there long after the door shut, listening to the quiet settle in.Everything about her had been off.And I wasn’t the kind of man who ignored evidence.Whatever had sent her running—it wasn’t done with us.
And neither was I.
This couldn’t be it.
The door clicked shut behind her, and the silence that followed felt louder than any argument we never had.Because we didn’t fight.Maybe that was the problem.We seemed to effortlessly fit together.
I stood there for a long time.Long enough for the tea she had made to go cold on the counter.Long enough for my muscles to start aching from holding myself still, like if I didn’t move, the moment might rewind.Like she might knock again and tell me she said it wrong.That she was scared but staying.
She didn’t.I couldn’t even manage to hallucinate her image here.
I tried to eat.Took chicken out of the fridge, stared at it like it had personally offended me, shoved it back in untouched.My stomach twisted anyway, hunger and nausea tangled together until neither won.
I sat on the couch where she’d been sitting, where her warmth was probably still lingering, and let my head fall back against the cushion.
Her eyes.
That was the part I couldn’t get past.
They’d been empty.Not angry.Not dramatic.Just hollow.Like something inside her had gone quiet and taken the light with it.
What the hell changes in forty-eight hours?
I had only been gone two nights.A brutal case, back-to-back shifts, the kind that bleeds into your bones.She knew.She kissed me goodbye like always, told me to be safe, told me she would see me when I got back.
Nothing about her then had hinted at this.
I lay down fully clothed sometime after midnight.Stared at the ceiling until the streetlight outside cast moving shadows that looked like someone pacing.
I didn’t sleep.
