It was his fault. He knew that.

It was his fault that you were leaving. All the nights spent waiting for him to come home. The weeks and months of him being gone with only a handful of texts exchanged between the two of you. He knew.

He sits on the edge of the bed, the one you’d shared for the last few years. The comforter set you’d purchased because you had liked the color, the sheets that still smelled like you. He watches you pack your things, and doesn’t utter a word. He hadn’t fought back when you said you were leaving. Hadn’t begged, or offered to change. He’d just nodded. If this was what you wanted, that’s what he would give you.

The last t-shirt is folded, the last pair of shoes tucked into your suitcase. Your toothbrush is missing from the bathroom counter, where it usually always sat beside his.

When every one of your belongings is reduced to boxes and bags, he just finds himself staring at you. Memorizing the details of your face, all the times he’d kissed the mouth that was pulled into a sad frown, the deep circles lining the eyes he adored. He knows you need closure, need him to say something. Anything to make this easier. But he had always been a glutton for pain.

“We never stood a chance, did we?” he asks, his voice quiet and even.

He wants to reach out, wipe away the tear that’s tracking slowly down your cheek. But he doesn’t. You sigh finally, rubbing at your face with the sleeve of your shirt.

“That’s the sad part” you murmur, and something in his chest begins to ache at the devastation written across your features. “We did once.”