“Alex,” she began, “I’ve been thinking about us.”

He didn’t like how serious her voice sounded.
He smiled, trying to make it lighter. “That sounds dangerous.”

But she didn’t laugh.
She looked down, tracing a line in the dust with her shoe.
“I don’t think… we’re what I thought we were.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I think it’s just… a situationship.”

The word felt quite small, but final.

He laughed softly, Is this prank or a test?
She didn’t look up. “I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s not that I don’t care about you. I just…” She paused. “I don’t feel the same anymore.”

There was no shouting, no tears. Just the two of them sitting there, the distance between them bigger than any argument could make.

He said, “Was I really that bad?”
She shook her head. “No. You were… kind. Too kind, maybe. But sometimes kindness isn’t enough.”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at her. He just stared at the road where the streetlight cut the darkness into pale gold shapes.

After a long while, she said softly,

“Please don’t hate me. You didn’t deserve this.”

He told her he’d already forgiven her for things she hadn’t done yet.
He said he’d wait as he always would.
 

They walked home in silence, their shadows overlapping for the last time.

That night, her window stayed dark. He didn’t.
He kept the light on, as if it could hold her there a little longer.

Later, when the sun came up, he found a quote online that felt too fitting to ignore:

“Sometimes love doesn’t end in anger. It ends when two people quietly stop meeting in the same place.”