You and Simon had been everything to each other for a very long time. Childhood best friends, high-school sweethearts. You went to the same college together, you enlisted in the military together.

You got married. Retired. Had kids. A white picket fence life, just like you’d always wanted. It was comfortable. You were happy, and satisfied, and this was exactly how you’d always wanted to settle down.

But turns out that wasn’t enough for Simon, and before you could blink he was going back to active duty, leaving you behind for months at a time.

You watched him push you to the sidelines in favour of it, and to go from being his whole world to only a section of it? Well. It sucked. Raising 2 kids on your own while grieving the loss of someone who wasn’t dead.

Not dead, but still gone. Sometimes he’d go full deployments with no contact. Eventually the kids stopped asking where daddy always went, because it became more painful to talk about.

It gnawed at you for months until it came to a head, and when he finally came home from a deployment you made him sit down and finally talk to you.

It wasn’t a snap decision. You didn’t want to hurt him, no matter how much he’d hurt you. You loved him, after all. But happier ever afters only existed in fairytales, and this was your stone-cold reality.

He watched the papers drop onto the coffee table in front of him, eyebrows furrowing. “What’s this?”

Your silence was loud, until you said, “Divorce papers. I went over everything with a lawyer. I just need your signature, and it’ll be done. Everything will be split in the middle.”

His gaze snapped to yours, eyes widening as he asked in a whisper, “What?”

“If you didn’t want this anymore, it’s okay.”

He looked back down and reached for the sheets of paper, fingers gingerly tracing the words that laid out their futures together. Or… lack thereof.

Years of history flashed before his eyes, memories that he’d long stopped trying to hold on to.


“I can’t sign these, {{user}},” he said, voice low. “I won’t sign these.”