Shattered Glass, Shattered Hearts

The tension in Ethan's apartment was thick, clinging to the air like an invisible fog.

He hadn't seen Sarah in the two months since she had left, but even the memory of her departure still stung like an open wound. Now, as he waited for her to show up, that familiar knot of anxiety tightened in his chest. The seconds seemed to stretch into hours as he paced the floor, glancing toward the door every few moments.

When the doorbell rang, it was sharp and impatient, cutting through the quiet like a knife. Ethan froze for a moment, steeling himself before he moved to open it. He barely had time to step aside before Sarah shoved her way into the apartment, her presence filling the space with a harsh, biting energy.

She didn't greet him. She didn't even look at him. Instead, she made a beeline toward the boxes of her old belongings in the corner, her movements swift and aggressive.

"Where are they?" she snapped, her voice already tinged with frustration. "I don't have all day."

Ethan blinked, taken aback by the force of her words. "Sarah… it's good to see you," he said quietly, trying to ease the tension. He wasn't ready for this, for her. But he couldn't stop it now.

She snorted, rolling her eyes as she rifled through the boxes. "Good to see me? Don't act like we're friends, Ethan. I'm not here for small talk. I'm here because I need my things. I don't know why you kept them for this long."

Ethan swallowed hard, trying to maintain some semblance of calm. "I didn't think you'd want to come back so soon."

Sarah spun around to face him, her eyes blazing with fury. "Soon? You think two months is 'soon' after what you put me through? Do you even realize how hard it was for me to get away from you? To finally walk out of this place and get my life back?"

Her voice was rising, the anger spilling out of her in waves. Ethan could feel the force of it crashing against him, but he said nothing. He just stood there, his heart pounding, his throat dry. He didn't know what to say. What could he say?

"Look at you," she continued, her voice dripping with contempt as she gestured around the room. "You haven't changed a thing, have you? Still living in this miserable apartment, like you're just waiting for me to come back and fix everything for you. Newsflash, Ethan—I'm not coming back. Ever."

Ethan flinched at her words, his chest tightening. "I never asked you to—"

"Of course you didn't!" Sarah cut him off, her voice a sharp, mocking edge. "You never ask for anything. You just expect everyone to clean up after your mess. That's what I did for years. I carried you. I carried your problems. I sacrificed everything for you, and for what? So you could keep drowning in your self-pity?"

Ethan's hands trembled at his sides, but he didn't move. He didn't argue. He had heard it all before. In the days after she left, he'd replayed their last fight over and over in his head, the same accusations, the same venom in her words. It had all been his fault. Everything had always been his fault.

Sarah's eyes narrowed, her rage burning hotter with every word. "You're pathetic, Ethan. I wasted so much time on you, hoping you'd get your shit together. But you're broken. You've always been broken, and you're too weak to do anything about it."

Ethan opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat. He couldn't argue with her. He couldn't defend himself, not when deep down, he believed she was right. He had failed her. He had failed himself.

Sarah laughed bitterly, her voice echoing through the small apartment. "You think you're the victim in all of this, don't you? You think you're some tragic hero, suffering in silence while the world moves on without you. Well, guess what? No one cares, Ethan. No one gives a damn about your 'pain.' You don't get to drag me down with you anymore."

Ethan's breath hitched, his heart pounding in his chest as her words cut deeper and deeper. He tried to keep his composure, to hold on to whatever dignity he had left, but it was slipping away with every cruel remark she threw at him.

"You know what the worst part is?" Sarah's voice dropped to a low, venomous whisper. "I actually felt sorry for you. For a long time, I thought it wasn't your fault—that you just needed help. But now I see the truth."

She took a step closer to him, her eyes boring into his with pure malice. "You're a coward. You're too afraid to face your own demons, so you expect everyone else to do it for you. And the world would've been better off if you'd never come back."

Ethan's heart stopped. The air in the room seemed to freeze as her words sank in.

She leaned in closer, her voice cold and merciless. "I wish you had died over there, Ethan. I wish you'd stayed in Afghanistan and spared me from wasting years of my life on you."

The blow was swift, brutal. Ethan's body stiffened, his mind reeling as her words tore through him. He felt the breath leave his lungs, the blood draining from his face. For a moment, he couldn't move, couldn't think. It was like everything inside him had been ripped apart, and all that was left was a hollow, aching void.

But Sarah wasn't finished. She grabbed the framed photo Sam had given him—the one of his unit, his brothers in arms—and hurled it at him with all the force she could muster.

"And you think anyone cares about this? This stupid picture? You don't deserve this—any of this!"

The frame hit Ethan square in the face.

Pain exploded across his cheek as the glass shattered on impact, sending shards flying across the room. Ethan stumbled back, clutching his face, the sharp sting of the broken glass cutting into his skin. The photo clattered to the floor, the glass fragments glittering like cruel stars around it.

Ethan could barely register the pain. The physical hurt was nothing compared to the storm raging inside him. Sarah's words echoed in his mind, louder and louder, until they drowned out everything else.

Sarah stood there, breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling with the force of her anger. She looked at him with disgust, as though he were nothing more than a shadow of the man she had once known.

"Pathetic," she muttered, turning on her heel and grabbing her things.

He didn't even see her leave. One moment she was there, screaming and the next, the door was slamming behind her, leaving only silence in her wake.

Ethan stood there, his chest heaving, his heart racing, the taste of blood on his tongue from where the glass had cut him.

Slowly, he sank to his knees, his hands trembling as he reached for the broken photo. The glass cut into his fingers, but he didn't care.

He stared down at the photograph, his vision blurring as tears threatened to fall. The faces in the picture stared back at him—faces of people he had lost, people who had meant something to him once. People who had seen him at his best and his worst.

The frame was shattered, just like everything else in his life.

He was broken. He had always been broken.

And maybe… maybe she was right.

Maybe he should have died over there.