the truth stood behind me, silent, while i handed you something prettier. i kept telling myself the longer i do this with you, the more I'll believe it— and maybe stop breaking every time. i remember the week-long staycation, trying to figure things out between us. you know neither of us wanted to reach the end, so we played house instead. the sun shone brighter, the moon glowed perfectly. zooted with you, talking about how happy we were, how in love— how we wanted forever. but then you did what you did: hiding your phone, carrying it everywhere, closing apps when you felt me watching. that’s when it hit— this was all a façade. a fake front, because neither of us was ready to admit our end had come. we wanted a lifetime so badly, we ignored the cracks in everything. i kept handing you something prettier, because it’s all i knew how to do. the truth hurt too much, so i wrapped it in softer colors, shaped it into something easier to hold. i looked away from the parts of you that had already left. i painted over silence with laughter, over distance with memory, and over betrayal with the hope that maybe love was enough. but deep down, i think we both knew— we were rewriting a story that had already ended. still, i handed you something prettier, because that’s all i wanted to keep believing.