He touched you like he meant it. Like every brush of his fingers was a promise he didn’t say out loud. Like he already knew the map of your body before you ever let him see it.

And the way he talked—God, the way he talked. Those words sank straight into you, soft and lethal at the same time. You never believed words could make a home in your ribs, but his did. They curled up inside you, warm and dangerous.

And now what? Now it was done. Just like that—done. No explosion, no fight, no reason that made any sense. Just a sentence thrown into the air and everything inside you collapsing under its weight.

Months. It had been months of I love you’s whispered like secrets you thought were safe. Months of his hands in your hair, his lips on yours, midnight roads and music low enough that you could hear him breathe. Months of believing him. Believing all of it.

And then he looked at you—so calm, so sure— and said,“I don’t want a relationship.”

As if you hadn’t been loving him in every way a person can be loved. As if what you had was something small enough to just shrug off.

It shattered you. Not in half. In millions of tiny pieces that didn’t even look like you anymore. But all you managed to say was, “Okay.” That stupid, quiet okay— followed by a smile you forced into place, a joke you didn’t feel, a nod that tasted like betrayal.

And the weeks after? You drowned. Not dramatically, not loudly—but in that quiet way where no one notices until you’re already at the bottom.

You barely left your room. Barely ate. Barely recognized the girl staring back at you in the mirror. And the worst part?

He didn’t care.

He moved on like love was something people replace, like you were something he misplaced and didn’t bother looking for.

There was another girl—of course there was. Because that’s how it goes when someone gets tangled up with him. He never needed time. He needed attention. He needed a body to hold and a mouth to kiss, something warm, something easy, something that wasn’t you anymore.

And it didn’t matter how much you hurt. It didn’t matter that he had once held your face like it was something holy. He moved on.