A Silent War

They didn't break down my door. They knocked.

A man in a suit. A folder heavier than it looked. By the time I opened it, I had already lost. I just didn't know it yet.

For twenty years, she was the first person I told everything. Everyone said we were proof that love could last.

Then the person who knew me best began to take me apart. Quietly. Patiently. Every kindness rewritten as a crime. Every memory turned into a weapon. The house that used to be so loud went silent, and in that silence I was erased, piece by piece, until even I couldn't recognise what was left.

And still, every morning, I reached for a second coffee cup. Still half-turned to tell her something funny, before the empty room reminded me. The phone I most wanted to pick up was the one I could never call again.

Nobody wins a war like this. It takes and takes, until there's nothing left of you to take. And then it asks for more.

I kept telling myself the worst was over. It wasn't. It was about to come home.

Some wars are fought in silence. This is what it feels like to lose one.