He always knew he wasn’t a good man for you.

Not in the way you deserved, anyway.

Simon Riley didn’t know how to soften himself, didn’t know how to be present without standing at attention even in his own kitchen.

Love, to him, was quiet endurance. Long silences. Absences he catalogued as calm. Months gone, weeks of static-filled calls, the way he’d come home already halfway gone again. He told himself you were strong. That you understood. That this—this cold, controlled distance—was better than letting the war bleed all over you.

But you were never something to be endured.

You were something that should’ve been cherished. Held. Chosen without hesitation.

Instead, loving him felt like living in a warzone he kept insisting was peaceful.

There were too many fights. Too many moments where your warmth slammed headfirst into his restraint. You wanted reassurance; he gave you duty. You wanted words; he gave you a hand on your lower back and silence. You asked him to stay, just once, and he told you he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Didn’t know how.

Eventually, the arguments stopped.

No slammed doors. No shouting. Just distance stretching thin and sharp until it cut clean through everything you were trying to save. No contact followed.

Weeks turned into months. Simon told himself it was for the best. That if you loved him, you’d be better off without him. That stubborn people like the two of you could destroy each other faster than any bullet ever could.

He didn’t know you were already making your goodbye.

The apartment had gone quiet long before he returned. You moved carefully, deliberately. Your drawers emptied first. Then the closet. You didn’t take much—only what was yours, only what you could carry without breaking apart. The hardest thing to leave wasn’t the furniture or the shared mugs or the photographs you couldn’t look at anymore.

It was him.

You kissed his dog tags once, soft and reverent, before tucking them back into the dusted nightstand drawer where he always left them.

The engagement ring—slid onto your finger in a back-alley chapel at three in the morning, half-laughing, half-bleeding love—went last. You threaded it onto the chain and left it there with the tags. A promise returned. A future folded neatly away.

When Simon finally came home months later, the door opened to emptiness.

Your scent still clung to the apartment—salt and soap and something heartbreakingly familiar. The bed was cold. Your side untouched. The pillow beside his smelled faintly of dried tears, and it nearly brought him to his knees.

He stood there longer than necessary, helmet still in his hand, staring at a life that had moved on without him.

His apartment. His bed. His silence.

And you—god, you could be anywhere now.

That was when the calm finally cracked.

And Simon Riley realized he didn’t know how to live without you…

and he was desperate to find you.