Blinded by love, Fooled by lies

The café used to feel warm. Familiar. Safe.

Now it just felt... hollow. Like all the light in the room was too sharp, too artificial - trying too hard to make everything look okay when it wasn't. The hum of the espresso machine, the clink of cups, the quiet chatter around us - all of it faded into a kind of static. A blur. Like my heart couldn't focus anymore.

I looked at him - the boy who once felt like home - and all I saw was a stranger wearing the face of someone I used to love. Someone who memorized my coffee order, who sent good luck texts before every quiz, who promised I'd never have to face anything alone.

How did it all turn into this?

Why did it feel like he reached into my chest, built something beautiful with his hands... only to crush it without flinching?

He sat across from me, breathing the same air, looking into my eyes - but I swear, he wasn't really there anymore. Just a ghost of every almost. Every lie wrapped in sweet gestures. Every "I love you" he probably whispered to her too.

And the worst part?

He still looked at me like I meant something. Like he didn't just shatter the only version of love I believed in.

It wasn't just betrayal. It was erasure.
It was the slow, aching realization that I was never enough to make him choose just me.

He knew how to hold me so gently... and that's exactly how he broke me - softly, completely, without warning.