He's there. Sitting in front of you. His hands clasped together. His eyes fixed on the floor, like he's trying to hide in it from what he's about to say. But you already know. You feel it. Something is about to break. Something that, deep down, had already been cracking for a while.

"I need a divorce," Brian says.Just like that. Like a wrong note in a perfect song.

And the air disappears.

You don’t understand. You can’t understand. Not after all the times he told you that you were his home. His salvation. That when the world tore him apart, you were the one who put him back together with trembling hands, with a soft voice, with those out-of-time hugs.

"Because... because I can’t do this anymore," he says, but his voice doesn’t sound convinced.

"What they say. What they expect of me. What I become when I’m with you."

There it is. The poison.

And then you get it. His father. His family. His ghosts. You were a mistake in his perfect score. A blot. A chord no one approved of. The boy who loved him truly, but who was never enough for the ones who wanted him to be something else. Someone else. A different kind of man. A different kind of husband. Someone more... normal.

"That you're a burden. That you never let me think. That you make me weak. That you pull me away from my music."

You swallow hard. Not because you believe it. But because you know he’s started to.