Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Between Happiness and the End

I'm not sure when it happened, at some unknown point along the way, somewhere between happiness and the end.

It might have started when you broke my heart, for reasons I still don't fully understand. I never could get over that, even though I tried so hard I thought I finally did. Heaven knows how I tried, but some things just don't fade away. Sometimes the pain still clings, even when you try to shake it off.

It might have been when you had to have your way, one of those unnumbered times. I stopped counting long before that. I believed in compromise, even to my own detriment.

Perhaps it was that last time we fought. I found myself wondering what it would be like to walk out the door and not have to argue about such pointless things anymore.

It could have been when I looked into someone's eyes and wished that I could keep looking forever, without thinking of you and feeling guilty. Possibly it was another's smile that made me want to smile in return, when you couldn't make me smile at all. You only made me want to cry.

Maybe it was when I felt happy, not because you were around but despite your being near, and realized that emotion. Or was it when you went away? You were gone, and I found I didn't care. You called, and I didn't want to talk. The days went by, and I felt free again. Someone asked me if I missed you. I found myself choking on the lie. Life was just as good without you here. Freedom was unexpectedly sweet.

It doesn't really matter where or when. Why isn't all that important. Questions are just for curiosity: all of this is simply empty surmise.

However it happened, at some point I realized—this is the way that love ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

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