-I miss you.
-I’m sorry.

The finality of the words confuses me. The two black words on the small screen of my phone seem to emboss themselves into my brain, like a seal pressing into a puddle of hot wax on a letter, only to be broken by the one to read it.

The confirmation of the words scares me. The feeling that the end of us was coming had been gnawing at my heart for the last two months. This confirms it. The short, meaningless conversations, the unreturned affection, the lack of emotion, they all were pointing to the end and I didn’t want to, and still don’t want to believe it.

The word causes the exhaustion from the day to wash over me. I type out a quick Okay. Goodnight, and close my eyes and fall asleep looking at the words imprinted in my head.

The two words echo silently in my head the entire next day. I see her and everything seems normal. This does nothing to reassure me because normal lately has been bad. Nothing changes.

My mom confirms what I was dreading, She wants to end it. I text her with trivial things, telling her I love her after a while, not sure if I had done so that day. That’s odd. I always tell her I do. I ask her if I did tell her today. She responds saying I did. I respond saying it doesn’t hurt to say it multiple times. With an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, I type:

-You still love me, right?
-