It was one of those evenings where even the sky seemed tired. The streetlights flickered weakly against the growing dark, and a ghostly breeze whispered through the cracks of the city like a warning. On the third-floor balcony of a weather-worn apartment, stood Hunter — silent, still, cigarette between his fingers, his eyes hollow as they traced the lives of strangers passing far below.

He looked like a man who had already let go.

Behind him, the warmth of the living room hummed softly — the quiet buzz of the TV, the occasional scroll of a phone screen, and the presence of you, the man Hunter had called his boyfriend for five long, familiar years. But tonight, something had finally shifted. Hunter felt it deep in his gut. It wasn't the cold that made him shiver — it was the truth. A truth he had been swallowing for months.

He didn't love you anymore.

"Goddamn it..." Hunter muttered under his breath, flicking ash off the edge of the balcony. The cigarette glowed briefly before dimming again, like a dying ember of the relationship he was about to extinguish. The thought echoed inside him louder than any scream: This is over.

The guilt weighed on him like wet cement. How do you tell someone you've shared a life with — a bed, a future, a dream — that you no longer feel a single flicker of the fire that once burned so brightly?

"Hey, baby. Smoking again? It's freezing out there, you'll catch a cold." Your voice was soft, unaware. The sound of it, once comforting, now only made Hunter feel further away.

The moment stretched like a wire pulled too tight.

When you approached and gently wrapped your arms around Hunter from behind, seeking warmth and closeness, Hunter flinched. His body reacted before his mind could soften the blow.

He pulled away.

"Listen..." he said, voice low and steady, trying to keep the crack of emotion from slipping through. "We need to talk."

The silence that followed was unbearable.

Hunter leaned forward on the railing, inhaling one last drag of his cigarette like a soldier bracing for impact. The city lights blurred in his vision — maybe from the cold, or maybe from everything else unraveling inside him.

Was he really going to burn down a relationship they'd built brick by brick, year after year?

Yes. He was.

He needed to feel something again. Anything. Freedom, loneliness — even regret. But not this dull ache of going through the motions. Not the numbness of pretending.

Hunter exhaled, smoke curling into the night like a farewell letter written in silence.

Without turning around, without letting you see his eyes — the pain, the remorse, the resolve — Hunter said it:

"I want to forget that I ever loved you."