You begged him not to leave. Told him that it wasn’t worth the risk. There had never been a mission with so many possible casualties. And still, he left you. Alone in your small rural home, waiting for the weeks to pass by until the day he was supposed to return.

But he never did. You texted. You called. You messaged his colleagues. Months passed, and he still didn’t show up. The left side of your double bed was still cold, his beers were still in the fridge, his clothes still folded neatly in the closet. It was like time came to a halt when he wasn’t there. You were completely and utterly alone, and your faith in him returning alive had almost entirely diminished.

Smoke twirled away from your lips and into the crisp late night air as you sat on the steps up to the porch of your once shared house, a thin cigarette pinched between two of your fingers as you stared down at your cellphone. The light from the screen shone onto your face, highlighting the expression of grief that seemed to age your soft features by a decade. Why you still tried to call him, you didn’t know. Maybe it was the way your heart finally beat like a live person’s at the prospect of hearing his voice on the other end of the line, or how you could stare at his profile picture while your phone rang.

“{{user}}.”

That voice. Your name. He stands there, a good few feet away, mask off and held in his free hand, the other tightly wrapped around a crutch. A cut lip, a scarred brow, a supported right leg. A broken man. A man who left you. A man who had missed every single one of your 23 calls. A man desperate for you to forgive him.