It wasn’t that on Sundays he woke up too early to go jogging. Or that, sometimes when he got tired his voice cracked and it reminded her of her teenage brother.
It wasn’t even that that time had had gotten drunk and told her he thought of his life as a ffffaaailure.
It was the way he would reply to her sometimes, as if he were more of a stranger than a lover. The way he asked her if she wanted coffee in the morning. Like a co-worker to another co-worker. It was the way he touched her back, lightly, as if he was scared to hold on.
He never held on.
She let go as the months passed. Unraveled their relationship like a ball of string, trying to find the frayed beginning. She wasn’t sure she would find it, or if there were multiple tears; too many to count.
And as fall cooled into winter she finally accepted that maybe there had never been a set beginning, that, maybe the frays had pulled them both apart.
She let go.