There was nothing more to be said after her words left her lips to hang heavy and cruel in the air like a tumultuous cloud. So heavy was the weight of her utterance that he was compelled to take a few staggered steps backwards from her, evermore increasing the distance between them; she on one side of the bleak room, he on the other.

He looked at her as if she had slapped him. He half-wished she did, if it would distract him from the pain welling in his chest. He could only look at her, dumbly so, while his mind raced with half-formed questions he wanted to throw at her. He wanted to make her understand, somehow, yet found nothing to make sense with.

What had he done wrong this time?

He looked at her… her flushed cheeks, her wide and damp eyes… her lips were parted as if ready to hurl more undoings at him. He was hurt by the sight of her: how betrayed she looked, how deeply wounded she was by the very accusations she threw at him. Did she truly believe her own words?

He looked at her ’til he could no longer bear the sight of his anguish mirrored in her countenance. He simply did not know what to do anymore.

He fled.

He did not see her fall to her knees.

He did not see her tears.

He did not hear her quiet sobs.

He could not see her.