We’re both pretending this doesn’t hurt.

Because if we admit the ache, we have to admit the cracks – and neither of us is ready to see what slips through them.

So we laugh a little softer, hold each other like it’s fine, and act like the silence between us doesn’t mean anything.

But it does.

It means everything we’re not saying.

It means we care too much to lose this, even if this is already losing pieces of itself.

There’s comfort in the pretending.

A kind of mercy in the pause.

But beneath the surface, we’re both aware –

sometimes what still feels good is also what’s quietly breaking you.