Call of Duty Oneshots (Mostly Ghost)

Heavy as granite

It'd been a long time coming.

My wedding ring seemed like a boulder on my ring finger, now just for decoration, and I couldn't help but wonder if he even kept his on after stepping out the door, heavy bags on his already tired shoulders.

Did that silver band feel just as heavy or demanding as I found mine?

As newlyweds, a quick kiss on the cheek would've led to him almost being late to his flight, the deployment being the last thing on his mind. Now, I'd be lucky to even get that chaste peck, his lips no longer lingering on my cheek hours later.

As someone who thrived on and flourished within the bounds of physical touch, I didn't recognize myself in the mirror when he was gone. The light had burned out in my eyes months ago, and I couldn't remember the last time he made me laugh, wrinkling the lines bordering my mouth he once couldn't get enough of.

When he was home, all the discussions we had were either done so in passing or arguments that blew out of proportion, birthed out of something small.

It was the notion of being alone that terrified me and kept me planted in a loveless marriage.

I'd decided, stupidly so, that any interaction was better than none.

It was when he left with a single "bye" and no kiss that I realized I deserved better. Did I not? The long distance was something I could deal with as long as I didn't still feel alone when my other half returned home. I lived with ghosts, and my wedding ring haunted me – the stone now made of granite instead of diamond.

I ensured he came home to a clean house.

Keeping up the household was a lot easier when I had only one person to take care of.

Hope lingered that my husband would return and be the same person I first married, but disappointment shadowed him every time he walked through the threshold.

He expected the same wife even when he had changed so drastically.

I had an even silent spouse and an emptier home.

Sex was more of an obligation, a chore for an obedient wife.

Passion no longer thrived and flourished between us, and fragments of my soul broke off every time he came back home when the richness in those chestnut orbs continuously died out.

Dull and drained.

He no longer seemed... happy. There was no better word for it.

He immediately shut down the idea of therapy, couple's and individual.

That was the final straw for me.

How could I be with someone who didn't care anymore? Why should I fight for something that he wasn't fighting for as hard as he fought for his country?

I came last, buried and suffocated by the mountain he'd thrown on top of me.

I just hoped whoever he gave my rings to next, the ones I left behind on his nightstand, didn't mind being haunted by the ghost of their husband.