There are many ways to kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough. Theo lived that exact moment, the moment he read the letters written by his best friend, his only real friend, Guy, letters of love, love for you. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, was it? He wasn’t supposed to find out this way. Maybe it was fate, he told himself. Maybe it was the universe trying to warn him that he was better off staying away from you. You were a bad influence, his mother had said.

He couldn’t afford to be a laughingstock, not because he cared about what people thought, but because it would strip him of power. Just the idea of the scandal, his wife in love with another man, turned his stomach. The lies, the betrayal, for how long? God, he couldn’t even look at you. He didn’t want to, no, he couldn’t. Something in his chest twisted hard as if someone had stolen the image he once had of you, ripped it away in a single, cruel breath.

He pressed his hand to his chest, eyes fixed on the ground, jaw clenched tight. He was trying to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come.

“I need you to leave,” he forced out, voice ragged and thin, like it hurt to even say the words. He was falling apart, undone by the person he believed was the love of his life. They told him he rushed in too fast, they told him love was blinding, and God, he had been stupid, blinded by a drug as sweet and agonising as love. “I can’t—don’t want to see you. Your things will be sent somewhere else. You can stay as far away from me as possible. We don’t need to speak. I’ll come up with something when people ask.” He didn’t lift his gaze, he ouldn’t bear to see your face, but your soft, broken sob, that sound shattered him, right in the chest.

Could you hear it? Could you hear his heart breaking? The love he had for you, the plans, the promises, the way he used to say forever, it all felt like a lie now. A cruel illusion, because you didn’t love him, and you never would.