I thought I knew heartbreak. I thought I understood the pain of it through witnessing it in real life or on screen. But nothing could mimic the real feeling of having your heart broken. Shattered.

The movies don’t talk about the ones who leave. The ones who didn’t have a choice. They are usually the bad people in the story. The heartbreakers that everyone hates. I wish they shared those stories, too. Maybe that would’ve prepared me.

I was told that if I loved them, I would stay. That love was so powerful nothing could tear us apart. But I guess this was a different kind of love. The one you have to sacrifice so the other can be happy.

I will never forget the pain behind those eyes. The eyes that once carried wonder and beauty and millions of stories were flooded with such hurt.

I told them goodbye and watched in silence as their heart broke. And mine shattered.

I’m doing this for them, I tell myself, So they can be happy.

Without me? What if I’m wrong? What if this isn’t fixing things but making them worse?

That thought alone convinced me to turn. To yell their name and apologize with tears in my eyes over and over and over. Tell them I made a mistake. But when I turn…

When I turn they are gone.

My heart has shattered once more, never to be fixed.