I left the restaurant without a scene, but the silence that followed carried more weight than any argument we’d ever had. In the days apart, I pulled at every thread of our history and watched the same pattern emerge: affection with a sharp edge, “teasing” that always seemed to find my softest places, apologies that smoothed things over without ever truly changing them. That plate wasn’t a fluke; it was a spotlight.

When I finally reflected his humor back at him, his outrage was immediate and unfiltered. In that moment, I understood he’d never been careless—he’d been comfortable. Comfortable with my hurt, with my shrinking, with my willingness to laugh along so I wouldn’t be left behind. Ending it required no grand speech. Just the quiet courage to step out of a story where my pain was a punchline, and into a life where my hope is no longer something to be mocked, but something I fiercely protect.