It was raining the night I realized I had lost her. Not in the literal sense, not at first. She was right there, across the kitchen table, tapping a spoon absentmindedly against her coffee mug. But the weight between us, the gulf that had opened up in the months prior, was deeper than any distance I’d known.

“Lena,” I began, the tremor in my voice betraying me. “Do you ever think about us? About how we used to be?”

Her eyes, once full of light, shifted toward me, but they were glassy now, dull. She shrugged. “Sometimes.”

Sometimes. A single word that was cold and empty, like the air between us. There was no anger in her voice, no sorrow. Just indifference. It wasn’t like her.

I pressed on, desperate, as if by some miracle I could pull her back. “I don’t get it. We were… everything. What happened? What changed?”

For a long moment, she was silent. Then she put down her spoon, leaned back in her chair, and stared at me, really stared. But her gaze wasn’t filled with the warmth or love I once knew. It was vacant.

“Who are you?” she asked quietly.

The words sliced through me like a blade, sharp and unforgiving. My breath caught in my throat, and for a second, I thought I might collapse under the weight of them.

“What… what do you mean?” I stammered. “It’s me. It’s Luke.”

But she just kept looking at me, head tilted slightly, as if studying a stranger. And in her silence, I realized those three words were not a question; they were a verdict.

“Who are you?” she repeated, her voice hollow. “I don’t even know anymore.”

I reached across the table, grasping for her hand. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t meet me halfway either. Her skin was cold, a far cry from the warmth I used to feel beneath my fingers. There was no spark, no connection. It was like holding the hand of a ghost.

“You love me, Lena,” I whispered, though even as I said it, the words felt fragile, like they might shatter in the air. “We’re just going through a rough patch. We can fix this.”

Her gaze softened slightly, but it wasn’t the kind of soft that brought comfort. It was pity. “Luke,” she said, her voice breaking, “I don’t know how to feel anything anymore. Not for you. Not for us.”

I pulled my hand back as if I’d been burned. I could feel something inside me cracking, splintering. “You don’t mean that. You’re just tired, we’re both—”

“Stop.” She pushed back her chair and stood, walking to the window. The rain outside blurred the world, streaking against the glass like a reflection of the storm brewing inside me.

She pressed her forehead against the window, staring out. “I don’t know when it happened,” she said softly. “But somewhere along the way, I lost you. Or maybe I lost myself. I don’t even recognize who we are anymore. You’re a stranger, Luke. I look at you, and I feel… nothing.”

Each word felt like a stone being dropped into a well, sinking deep into the dark abyss where my heart used to be. I wanted to argue, to scream, to shake her until she remembered us, but I couldn’t move. I just stood there, numb, watching her slip further away.

I thought back to the nights we spent wrapped in each other’s arms, whispering promises that felt eternal. How did we get here? How did the love that once felt unbreakable become this? A hollow shell of something that used to be alive.

“Is this it?” I asked, my voice barely audible. “Is this how we end?”

She turned to face me, and for a brief moment, I saw the woman I once knew. The one who loved me fiercely, who laughed with her whole body, who made me believe in forever. But then she blinked, and the moment was gone, replaced by the stranger she had become.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. “But I can’t keep pretending, Luke. I can’t keep lying to you… or to myself.”

The finality in her voice was crushing. I staggered back, as if the air had been punched out of me. This was the moment I had feared for so long but had been too afraid to confront. I had lost her. Not to someone else, but to the slow erosion of time, of distance, of silence. To life.

She was leaving. Maybe not physically yet, but in every other way that mattered. I was already alone.

“I loved you,” I said quietly, more to myself than to her. “I still do.”

She nodded, but the sadness in her expression told me she couldn’t say the same. Not anymore.

The rain outside grew heavier, the sound drowning out the silence that filled the room. I watched her walk away from the window, out of the kitchen, and toward the stairs. I didn’t follow her.

As the door to our bedroom clicked shut, I realized that the woman I loved was already gone.

And I was left with nothing but memories of what we used to be.