I had always imagined the end would be loud.
Explosions. Gunfire. Screams.
Instead, it arrived in absolute silence.
He looked at me with something almost like pity.
Then he smiled.
Not because he'd won.
Because I'd finally understood.
The world didn't end that night.
It simply became impossible to pretend it had ever been real.
There is a peculiar kind of grief that comes with learning your entire life has belonged to someone else.
It doesn't hurt all at once.
It settles.
Slowly.
Until every memory you've ever loved begins asking the same question.
Was any of it ever mine?
He didn't deny it.
He didn't defend himself.
He simply watched me, as though he had been waiting years for me to reach this exact conclusion.
The folder slipped from my hands.
Paper scattered across the floor.
Somewhere behind me, an alarm began to ring.
I never heard the rest.
The only thing I could hear was my own heartbeat...
...and the sound of everything I believed collapsing at once.
YOU ARE READING
By Chance
RomanceThere is very little I remember from my childhood; glimpses of huge, ballrooms lit by crystal chandeliers high above me, a brush of warm fingers straightening my small tie, piles and piles of papers sprawled across a mahogany desk as an elderly man...
