Simon always thought that love could survive silence, that time would be enough to heal what he couldn't say. But the past cannot be healed by waiting, and she, tired of talking to his walls, left one night amid screams and tears.

He didn't run after her. He didn't have the courage.

Until the news of her final departure woke him up with a start. With his soul in tatters, under a rain that seemed to punish him, he ran without thinking. He had no umbrella, no flowers, only his broken heart and the certainty that if he didn't catch up with her now... he would lose her forever.

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At first, everything seemed simple.

The days slipped by amid soft laughter and little shared rituals: the warm coffee she left ready for him before he left, the short messages in the middle of the endless hours at the base, the hug and kiss that always awaited him at the door when he returned.

Simon used to think that calm was a form of redemption. That after so many sleepless nights, after so much noise and shouted orders in the middle of nowhere, he deserved something like that: a warm home, a voice telling him, "That's it, you can rest now."

She was his refuge, and although he never said it out loud, he knew it.

He liked to watch her when she spoke, how she gestured with her hands or frowned when something excited her. There was an energy about her that unsettled him and kept him alive, something that contrasted with his restrained and methodical way of being.

The first fights didn't seem serious. Routine things, schedules, silences. But over time, those silences began to hurt more than the arguments.

She tried to talk, she wanted to understand what was tormenting him, but he could barely manage to say, "Nothing's wrong." And even though his voice sounded firm, inside he knew that something was wrong. That something was always wrong.

The past, the one he never told her about, began to seep between them like water through a crack.

And although she continued to smile, it was no longer the same. Sometimes she looked at him with tenderness, other times with the resigned sadness of someone who loves but is beginning to tire of waiting.

~~~

As the months passed, something changed.

It wasn't sudden, but gradual. Like when a rope is stretched too tight and begins to give way, strand by strand.

Simon no longer arrived with the same tired smile, nor did she wait for him with the same enthusiasm. There were days when they barely spoke, caught between routine and pride. He was busy at work, trying to hide behind reports and strict schedules. She was increasingly lonely in a house that was beginning to feel foreign to her.

Conversations that used to be lighthearted became heavy.

She wanted to know what was bothering him, why he lay awake staring at the ceiling, or why he remained silent when she mentioned the future.

Simon didn't know how to explain it. There were parts of himself he preferred not to touch, wounds that never fully healed. The army had taught him to resist, not to talk. To obey, not to open up.

One night, while they were having dinner, she tried again.

"We can't go on like this, Simon," she said, her voice trembling but firm. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but I can't keep talking to myself."

He put his cutlery down. He felt that knot in his chest, the same one that had been with him for years.

"It's nothing," he replied, without looking at her.

"Yes, it is. You're slowly drifting away, and you're not even letting me understand why."

This time, they didn't argue. But the silence that followed was worse than any fight.

She got up from the table and locked herself in the bedroom. Simon was left alone, with the sound of the clock ticking away the time and the feeling that something inside him was slowly breaking.

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I cried while writing this, listening to "No me doy por Vencido" by Luis Fonsi.

It's up to you whether you forgive him or get on that plane!