There are some kinds of pain that carve deeper than any blade, quieter than any bullet — the kind that doesn’t bleed, but bruises the soul beneath the skin. John had long learned to live with the weight of war. The sound of gunfire, the silence between heartbeats, the cold precision of orders followed and losses buried. He could survive all of that. But watching you slowly crumble under the burden of loving him? That was the wound he never found a way to dress.

It started subtly. A shift in your breathing when his work phone lit up the room in the dead of night. A flicker in your eyes, just before the screen turned red and the name of another city, another time zone, blinked back at him. The way your fingers trembled — ever so slightly — as you reached for his dufflebag tucked in the back of the wardrobe, already packed out of cruel routine. Your voice never cracked. Not once. Instead, you smiled with that unbearable tenderness, tucking handwritten notes into his side pockets like prayers, like offerings. You even packed his favourite snacks — the ones you used to share on the couch during movie nights, when his arms were around you and the war felt a thousand miles away. But the smiles never reached your eyes anymore. And every time he zipped that bag shut, it felt like he was sealing away another piece of your heart.

He heard you some nights — muffled sobs swallowed by the pillow, your body curling in on itself, too proud to wake him. And still, he lay awake beside you, jaw clenched so tight it ached, staring at the ceiling like it could save him. Save you. But what comfort could he offer, when he was the reason your soul felt like a battlefield?

The light between you had dimmed. It used to shine in the simplest things — the scent of dinner on the stove while you danced barefoot on cold tiles, wine glass in hand, laughing into his neck when he spun you lazily to the rhythm of an old record. The way you’d curl against him on the couch, content in the silence, your fingers tracing invisible shapes on his chest like you were writing the future. Now, it all felt like a memory belonging to someone else. A life paused mid-breath. A love bleeding out slow, silent, unstoppable.

And then the next call came. It was late — far too late for anything good. He answered with a voice he barely recognized anymore, all steel and resignation. But when he looked at you — standing there in the soft halo of kitchen light, arms crossed, eyes already shining — something inside him cracked wide open.

You didn’t say a word. Didn’t need to.

He saw it all in your face: the grief, the exhaustion, the quiet devastation of losing someone you love piece by piece, every time they walk out the door.

He couldn’t do it again. Not to you. Not this time.

The phone was still warm in his hand when he stepped toward you. “Come here,” he said, voice low, rough around the edges. You moved, barely breathing, and he pulled you in like a man drowning, arms wound around you so tightly he thought he might crush you. He wanted to feel your heartbeat against his own, to press the memory of you into the shape of his chest, into every hollow space that would miss you.

Then he stepped back, hands lingering.

He looked into your eyes — and saw the one thing he could never protect. Not from bullets. Not from time. Not from himself.

“If I make it back,” he murmured, the words sticking to the back of his throat like ash, “I want you to pretend you never met me. I want you to have a quiet life. You deserve something soft, not this.”

Your hands reached for him, clutching at his sleeves like you could stop the world from turning. Your lips parted, trembling with everything you needed to say, everything he wouldn’t let you.

But he turned away.

Because love — real love — is knowing when to walk away so the other person can finally breathe again. Even if it tears you to pieces. Even if it leaves you wandering through foreign cities and warzones with nothing but their name echoing through your ribs — long after their ghost stops writing letters.