The Little Things

Chapter 14

The Weight of Dying Hope

I'm numb. I don't have it in me anymore. I can't feel anything; everything has stopped. My heart, once so full of life and love, now feels like a hollow shell, echoing with the emptiness you've left behind. Am I fine? No, I'm not. I'm far from fine. I'm shattered—a million fragments of a person who used to be an already broken shell.

Why does it hurt so much? Every time you do the thing I despise, it's like you're twisting a knife deeper into my soul. You promised you'd change, that things would be different, that we would be different. But why does it feel like you're slipping further away with each passing day? You gave me hope—beautiful, intoxicating hope. You showed me a glimpse of the life we could have had, the happiness we could share. And now, you're the one stealing it all away, as if it never meant anything at all.

Every night, I lie awake beneath these suffocating sheets, my tears soaking the pillow beneath my head, drowning in a sea of sorrow. The darkness wraps around me, a cold, unyielding embrace that only deepens the ache in my chest. I gasp for breath, each inhale a painful reminder of the life I'm still forced to live. My mind won't stop; it keeps whispering, relentless and cruel, taunting me with every thought, every memory. It's a torment I can't escape, no matter how hard I try.

My tongue feels like it's imprisoned, locked away in a cage of fear and despair, weighed down by the agony of dying hope. I want to scream, to shout, to tell you everything that's tearing me apart inside. But the words choke me, stifled by the fear that you'll just walk away, leaving me even more alone than I already feel. Yet, for you, I smother the agony, bury it deep within myself, and force a smile that doesn't reach my eyes. I keep the faint, flickering glimmer of hope alive just because I love you. Because loving you feels like the most natural thing in the world—as if I was born for this, born to love you, even if it means destroying myself in the process.

But why does it have to hurt this much? Why do I feel like I'm slowly fading away, like a shadow in the dark, while you're so blind to the pain you're causing? Maybe you aren't blind, because I know you aren't. You are the one mending my broken pieces every night, yet why is it so easy for you? To act like it never happened while I can't sleep at night from the wounds you've carved into my soul? My heart is breaking under the weight of all this love—a love that should bring joy and warmth. And it does. But the minute you turn and go do exactly what pierces my heart, it instead brings nothing but cold, suffocating despair. And still, I can't stop loving you, even though it's tearing me apart, even though it's killing me inside. And I won't. Not now. Not then. Not ever. And that's a promise.

I try to tell myself that things will get better, that you'll come to realize how much I'm suffering, how deeply I'm hurting. But deep down, I know that I'm lying to myself, clinging to a fantasy that will never come true. The hope that once burned so brightly, that once lit up my entire world, is now nothing but a flickering ember, barely alive, yet I keep fanning it, desperate for it to ignite once more, desperate for it to save me from this darkness.

I wonder if you see the pain in my eyes, the way my smiles never reach them anymore, the way the light in them has dimmed to nothingness. Or are you so consumed by your desire to do it that you can't see the darkness that's slowly consuming me, that you can't hear the silent screams echoing in my soul? The love I have for you outweighs every pain, every hurtful memory, every panic attack. It's something I can't escape from, no matter how much it hurts. My love is a chain that binds me to you, a chain that tightens around my heart with every passing day.

And so, I continue to pretend, to act like everything is fine, like I'm not falling apart inside, like I'm not dying a little more each day. Because I love you. Because loving you feels like breathing, like it's the only thing keeping me alive. But how long can I keep this up? How long before the weight of it all crushes me completely before the last spark of hope is snuffed out, leaving me in the darkness forever? How long before I lose myself entirely, lost to the love that was supposed to save me but instead has become the very thing that's killing me?