“I believed you,” I whispered. “I believed that everything you told me was how you truly felt.”

He remained silent and his face showed no emotion.

“I once told you that you had no reason to not be honest with me. Do you remember that?”

His eyes look away from me as he nods his head. When his eyes find mine again, I can see a small hint of regret in them now. A single tear escapes but I have to know the truth.

“All of the times you’ve said ‘I love you’, was that a lie too?”

I try to remain calm even though it seems like hours pass as my question hangs in the silence. I don’t understand how everything fell apart so quickly. How do you love someone one day and feel nothing the next. Was it a gradual decline that I was too consumed notice? Did something happen that he hasn’t told me about? Or…or was it never love to begin with?

“Did you ever mean it?” I ask. I’m no longer calm as the realization sets in. Against my will, my tears begin to poor down my face. As I try to reign my emotions back in he continues to silently look at me with pity. As I look away from him to wipe my weakness from my eyes he replies,

“Once, yes. But only once.”