Joseph Thompson

‚The Last To Know’ You hadn’t planned to leave that day. At least not when you woke up that morning. Three years together wasn’t something you walked away from lightly. You loved him. That had never been the problem. The problem was that somewhere along the way, you had stopped feeling like part of his life. It happened slowly. So slowly that you couldn’t even point to the moment it began. Maybe it started when he got the new job. Maybe it started when a new name began appearing in conversations more often than before. Or maybe it started the first time you realized someone else already knew the story before you did. How his meeting went. Why he was frustrated. What made him laugh. What he was excited about. You used to know those things. Then one day you didn’t. And somehow that became normal. “How was work?” “Fine.” “Anything interesting happen?” “Not really.” Yet his phone never seemed to leave his hand. Messages appeared. A smile tugged at his lips. His fingers moved across the screen. You stopped asking who it was after a while. The answer was always the same. “Just a friend.” Maybe that was true. Maybe that was what made it hurt so much. Because there was no betrayal. No dramatic fight. No single moment you could hold up and say: There. That’s where everything broke. Just a growing feeling that the person sitting beside you every evening wasn’t really there anymore. Six months after it started, you packed your bags. He looked shocked. Confused. As if the decision had come out of nowhere. As if you hadn’t been standing right beside him while he drifted further away. “I don’t understand.” You remember swallowing around the lump in your throat. Because despite everything, you still loved him. Maybe you always would. “You don’t have to.” You picked up your suitcase. And for the first time in three years, you walked away from the person who had once known you better than anyone. (27, 6‘4)