For two years he sent me photos of his lecture halls and his exam stress. Then a blown transformer asked one question his story couldn't survive.

Two cities apart, his daily videos of the cat were the only thing keeping us close. Then one of them showed me something he hadn't meant to film.

She tilted her phone away every time I walked in. Then, from two thousand miles away, she sent the text that explained everything.

I cut my sleep in half for two years so I'd always be awake for her mornings. She used every hour I was asleep to build a life I wasn't in.

She met me at the door with happy tears and a secret she thought would save us. She didn't know the one fact that made her whole story impossible.

My husband mocked soft love songs for ten years. So why was a syrupy ballad the one he could not stop playing on a loop nobody could explain?