Ella stopped waiting.
It happened quietly, without any big announcement or dramatic speech. One morning she woke up, looked at the empty kitchen, saw there was no coffee waiting and no mug set out for her, and something inside her just... settled. Not in a peaceful way. More like the way a heavy door closes and the lock turns with a final click. She didn’t cry about it. Didn’t scream. She simply accepted the truth she’d been dodging for weeks: he had made his choice. The distance wasn’t temporary. It wasn’t a phase. It was the new normal.
So she matched it.
She started leaving the kitchen before he came home. No more lingering on the couch with a book she wasn’t reading, hoping he’d sit down and talk. No more cooking extra portions “just in case.” No more small talk when he walked in la
