CERTAINTY

By Raoul Suarez

She said she had already made a choice. She said she had thought about it for quite a while, turning it over in her mind the way you worry a loose tooth with your tongue. Painful. Persistent. Impossible to ignore. She spoke carefully, like every word had been rehearsed and approved before being released. I listened, nodded at the right moments, and pretended that understanding would soften the blow.

She was caught between two things people rarely get to hold at the same time: the kind of love that promises a lifetime and the kind of security that promises peace of mind. You seldom get to have it all. It’s usually one or the other. Sometimes, if you’re unlucky, you get neither. She chose to take a risk on one rather than lose both. That was how she explained it. Reasonable. Measured. Almost gentle.

She said it was tough. She said it was a hard choice. She held both hands close to her chest. Her fingers curled inward as if she were protecting something fragile. Her eyes drifted to the ceiling, and she stayed there for a long while. Silent. Thinking. Contemplating. She lowered her gaze and looked straight at me. That familiar sparkle was still there. It was paired with the coy smile I had memorized over time. For a brief moment, for a foolish second, I thought I already knew the answer.

I had never been wrong about her before. I knew her habits, her tells, and the way her face softened when she was about to say something honest. I sat there and waited, like I always had. Waiting always felt worthwhile. She had always been worth it.

She bowed her head slightly, just enough to avoid my eyes, and then she mouthed a soft goodbye. Tears slipped down her cheeks. I instinctively wanted to wipe it all away, but my body refused to move.

Disbelief pinned me to the chair. It was heavy. It was absolute. The world seemed to mute itself all at once. There was no sound. There was no color. There were just expressions and gestures dragging themselves in slow motion.

The only noise I could register was the imagined sound of something inside me breaking apart, over and over again, like glass hitting the floor on a cruel loop. Then the door closed. The click echoed louder than it should have. It shattered the silence she left behind. I was alone again. She was gone. And this time, there was no maybe attached to it.

I stayed where I was long after she left. I kept replaying every sentence as if repetition might change its meaning. It didn’t. The room still carried traces of her. Her scent. The warmth she had left behind. The memory of laughter that once lived comfortably in the corners. I wondered how something so real could end so cleanly, like a sentence with a period I never agreed to place.

They say love teaches you things. If that’s true, then this one taught me how fragile certainty really is. How easily forever can shrink into a moment. Choosing doesn’t always mean winning. Sometimes it just means surviving what comes after. I wasn’t angry at her, and that surprised me. I understood the fear. I understood the need for stability. I understood the need for something solid beneath your feet. Love doesn’t pay bills. Love doesn’t guarantee safety. Love only promises itself, and even that promise is conditional.

I looked around the room. I stared at the empty chair across from me. I gazed at the quiet walls that had once heard us argue, laugh, and dream recklessly. Everything felt paused. It felt like the world was waiting for me to decide what came next. The pen in my hand felt heavier than it should have, but I let it move anyway. Words spilled out because they had nowhere else to go. If I couldn’t keep her, I could at least keep the truth of what we were.

She said she had already made a choice. She said she had thought about it for quite a while, turning it over in her mind the way you worry a loose tooth with your tongue. Painful. Persistent. Impossible to ignore. Maybe this is how some relationships end. Not with closure. Not with answers. But with acceptance slowly replacing hope. Maybe love doesn’t leave you empty. Maybe it leaves you full of something you don’t know how to carry. Not yet. Not at the moment. I don’t know what tomorrow looks like. I only know that tonight, I’m still going to be here.

She’s gone. She’s never coming back. It was good while it lasted. Love’s been good to me for a time. We had our fun. Now it’s just me, a pen, a piece of paper, and a loaded gun.