Love isn’t always soft. Sometimes, it claws. Sometimes, it destroys.

You married Logan the summer after graduation. Two kids clinging to the idea that love could hold a world together. The heat was heavy that day, the kind that stuck to your skin and made everything feel urgent, infinite. You thought that if you loved hard enough, deeply enough, you could build a life out of that. That somehow, it would be enough.

But now, a year later, love is a quiet thing. Cold. You speak less. He laughs louder, but never with you.

Logan comes home smelling like beer and bonfires, his shirt wrinkled, his smile faded by the time he crosses the doorway. You’re always awake. You always wait.

All you want is something simple. A little time. A little space in his life where you still matter. But lately, asking for that feels like a crime.

Tonight, it’s worse than usual.

The house rattles with the force of his anger. Glass explodes across the hardwood. Picture frames, bottles, the mug you gave him with I love you inked in your handwriting. Photos scatter like fallen soldiers. Your wedding day, your polaroids, your first apartment, all gone in splinters.

You sit curled on the corner of the couch, knees hugged to your chest, arms wrapped tight like armor. Your eyes are red but dry. You learned a while ago that tears don’t soften him. They only seem to make him angrier.

Logan stands across from you, chest rising and falling too fast. His hands tremble, jaw clenched like he’s still trying to hold something in. But the words still come, harsh and loud, crashing over the silence like a wave meant to drown.

“My world isn’t fucking all about you!”

You flinch. You don’t mean to. It just happens. And for the first time tonight, he sees you. Not just the outline of a girl on a couch, but the wreckage of her.

You, who stayed home while he went out. You, who memorized the sound of his footsteps, hoping they’d stop beside you just once. You, who traded your youth for promises he forgot how to keep.

His voice drops then. Not gentle, just quieter. Distant.

“I need space,” he says. “I need time with my friends.”

The room spins a little. You don’t have friends. You never really did. You had him.

That’s all you ever wanted, him.

And now he wants space.

He walks past you without a word, crunching over shattered glass on his way to the bedroom. The door doesn’t slam. It just shuts. Quietly.

You stay on the couch, unmoving. Not alone. Just forgotten.