Knowing There’d Be No After

We stood at the edge of us, each breath a quiet resignation, each glance a farewell etched in silence.

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She called me. Her voice was steady, almost distant.

Let’s meet, one last time.

I told her we shouldn’t. But she insisted, and I gave in.

In the parking lot, the weight of inevitability pressed on me. I was preparing myself to lose, preparing to see everything unravel right in front of me. My thoughts tangled like wires in my mind. Then my phone rang.

I’m here. Where are you?

I inhaled, tried to pull myself together, tried to shape the pieces of myself into something that resembled composure. Every step toward her felt like a step toward my own ruin. I walked, but it wasn’t walking — it was surrendering, it was marching toward a collapse I could already feel inside me.

Knowing there’d be no after — no second chances, no soft returns, just the sharp edge of finality made every breath sharper, heavier. This was not a pause. This was an end.

And then I saw her.

The sight of her familiar and distant, real and unreachable crushed the breath out of my chest. My lungs collapsed around the reality that this was it. My body betrayed…