You had always been a gift-giver. Not the flashy kind — not the kind who spent money to impress — but the kind who paid attention. The kind who noticed what someone liked, what they lingered on in store windows, what they mentioned once in passing and forgot they ever said. You gave pieces of thought, not just objects.

And you loved giving Simon gifts most of all.

It made you feel close to him in a way words sometimes failed to do. A way to remind him — silently — I see you. I choose you.

But lately, something had changed.

Simon had started pulling away in the quietest, cruelest ways. Not with shouting. Not with dramatic fights. But with distance. With distracted replies. With coldness where warmth used to live. The kind of behavior that made you question yourself instead of him.

You didn’t know yet that he was planning to break up with you. You only knew that he had been different for days.

Short-tempers. Dry responses. Eyes that slid past you instead of settling on your face.

Still, you held onto hope. And you held onto the gift.

The watch had taken you two months to pay off. Two months of skipped coffee, canceled plans, late shifts, and silent budgeting. You had stood at the counter asking for the price with your hands sweating, your heart racing — calculating whether love was worth the risk.

You decided it was.

It wasn’t a Rolex. It wasn’t luxury.

But it was good quality. Clean. Elegant. Something you thought suited him. Something you imagined on his wrist every day — a quiet piece of you going with him wherever he went.

When you finally gave it to him, your hands shook a little.

“For you,” you said softly. “I saw it and thought of you.”

He barely looked at it at first.

Just took the box from your hands, distracted, already annoyed about something you didn’t even know the cause of. When he opened it, his face didn’t soften. It hardened. His eyes flicked over the watch once — quickly, dismissively.

Then he scoffed.

“Seriously?”

Your smile faltered. “What?”

He lifted the watch between two fingers like it was something insignificant. “This looks cheap.”

The word hit harder than he intended. Or maybe exactly as hard as he meant it to.

You swallowed. “I— It’s not cheap. I thought you’d like it.”

He didn’t even meet your eyes. “You know what I wear. You know what I’m used to. This?” He let out a dry, humorless laugh. “This isn’t even close.”

Your chest tightened.

“What were you expecting?” you asked quietly, already dreading the answer.

“A Rolex,” he replied flatly. “That’s what I wear.”

And then he did the thing that shattered you — he held the box out and pushed it back toward your chest without even standing up.

“I don’t want it.”

The room felt suddenly too small. Too quiet. Your ears rang as you stared at the box in your hands like it no longer belonged to reality.

You didn’t tell him: That you had asked for the price with trembling hands. That you had calculated rent, food, and bills before saying yes anyway. That two months of your life were wrapped inside that box.