You don’t notice it at first—how something soft in him starts to harden, how the warmth in your shared jokes becomes something polite instead of natural. But you feel it. You feel it every time his eyes drift somewhere you can’t reach, every time he holds your hand with a hesitation he never used to have. It used to be easy between you, almost unreal in how light it felt. The kind of love people write about, the kind you thought you’d get to keep. But ever since he saw her again, that softness has been slipping through your fingers like sand. He insists he doesn’t know what he feels, insists he’s just confused—but the uncertainty is already coloring everything.

You try to stay. You try to understand. You tell yourself it’s just a phase, that he’s overwhelmed by old memories, that he’s just shaken because first loves have a way of digging up pieces of you you didn’t know were buried. But the more you try to hold on, the more you feel yourself drifting. His mind is somewhere else, somewhere you can’t follow, and every attempt to reach him feels like touching glass—he’s there, but you can’t get close. Some nights he still wraps his arm around you, but it feels like habit, not affection. And you lie there wondering if you’re the one who changed or if he’s just remembering what it felt like to love someone who wasn’t you.

Evander hates it too. You can see it. He’s suffering in a way that makes you ache—because he doesn’t want to hurt you, but he doesn’t know how to stop hurting you either. He tells you he’s trying, that he’s trying to figure it out, but every apology sounds like an echo of the last one. Confusion turns into tension. Tension turns into distance. And distance turns into silence—the heavy, painful kind that makes you realize you’re losing someone even while they’re sitting right beside you on the couch. It's like you both know the relationship is collapsing, but neither of you knows how to walk away first.

And then one morning, you wake up feeling empty in a way you can’t ignore. It’s not anger. It’s not even sadness—not the loud kind, at least. Just a quiet, exhausted acceptance. You pack your things slowly, carefully, like you’re afraid of breaking even the air around you. You don’t leave a note. You don’t know what to say anymore. Every word feels useless, and every explanation feels too late. When you close the door behind you, it barely makes a sound, but it feels like the world shifts anyway.

He comes home later that day, calling your name like he’s expecting the usual halfhearted reply you give him now. But the apartment answers with a silence heavier than anything the two of you ever shared. He walks into the bedroom and stops. Half the closet is empty. Your shoes are gone. Your favorite mug is missing from the kitchen shelf. He stands there in the middle of the room, breathing like someone punched the air out of him. At first he was in denial, hoping that if he just wait more, you'll eventually come back home—in his arms. He sat on the floor, knees weak, realizing—too late—that your absence hurts more than any confusion ever did.