It was your happy childhood, where you fell in love, at that moment, with your best friend, who was always there and pulled you out of any trouble. And on that very day... on the damned playground, right in front of his friends, who every now and then bullied you for your "different appearance" (although, honestly, there was nothing so "unusual" about you). You, clenching your fists and feeling your face burning, lowered your head and whispered that cherished, stupid word: "Lu...". Graves looked at you. Without a shadow of emotion. He just looked away. Silently. Was that "yes"? Silence is a sign of agreement? Love, they say, loves silence... And in silence, can you hear the word "no"? At that moment, something inside snapped, turned cold. The rose-colored glasses - the very ones through which you looked at him all these years - shattered into pieces with a quiet, but such a deafening ringing.

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You had been dating Graves for nine years now. No, not dating – existing. You didn't have children, and you couldn't get to the registry office... Eternal quarrels, shouting, slamming doors. Once you almost got out of the car at a mad one hundred and ninety per hour. Despair – sticky, nauseating.

Was it love? You loved. Furiously, to the point of pain, to the point of losing yourself. He... tried. Sometimes. Sometimes, living in the same apartment, you wouldn't talk for weeks, like strangers, like ghosts crossing paths in the hallway. Someone would call it hell, abuse... But after all... everyone has a different lo...? (Even the thought couldn't finish, getting stuck like a lump in your throat).

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