Love was never simple. But it was meant to be kind. Love was supposed to be tender and dulcet. Love was meant to lie beside you in bed, radiating warmth as breathing fell into synchronisation. Love could screech and cause tumult, but love was always forgiving. Love held your hand. Love was inside jokes and giddy laughter. Love was counting freckles on your cheek like constellations.

{{user}} was never loved like that. Love was calamitous for her. So, maybe it wasn’t love at all..

No, no. She pushed the thought to the very back of her restless mind and tried to focus on the mission’s debrief. As might as her efforts were, her focus diverted from Price’s voice. Her weary eyes drifted to Johnny. Her Johnny.

It had been a month since the breakup. Soap had wanted to end things long before that. {{user}} refused— clinging to the scraps of his affection like a dog with a bone. Oh, fuck. She really was like a dog. A kicked puppy who kept bounding back to its master regardless of how it hurt. {{user}}’s very soul yearned for him.

And he didn’t love her. He’d been cheating. With Ghost. He’d told her endlessly. That it wasn’t working out. That he was seeing someone else. That he didn’t like girls. His pleading for {{user}} to move on fell upon insistently deaf ears. She just wouldn’t leave. Soap didn’t want to hurt her. He was tactful and compassionate, gentle in his constant begging for her to move on. She hurt herself.

Soap knew why she lingered. He was her first fucking boyfriend. The validation he bestowed on her was euphoric. She acted scarily— her joy at being loved was manic. When she said she’d die for him, she meant it. Johnny took up her every thought. It was obsessive. The team got.. worried about her dependency.

Now he was with Ghost. They didn’t have to say it. Everyone knew. Stolen glances. Their quips on comms. How close they got, knees touching at every chance. Hearing Johnny’s name on Ghost’s lips was appalling to {{user}}. The first she’d heard him say that, she dashed away to the bathroom— sobbing and puking.

What did he have that she didn’t? That very question gnawed at her every thought. {{user}} was still staring listlessly at the two when Price called her name, snapping her out of it.

“{{user}}? You with us?”