Scars of a Tender Betrayal

Previously

…I didn’t know that the shield I felt so secure behind was, in fact, a cage waiting to be sprung. I didn’t know that the vows we exchanged, meant to bind us together, would become the very things that would eventually tear us apart, leaving behind only the ghost of a promise and the stark, echoing silence of what might have been. The lilies, I noticed as I drifted off to sleep that night, their fragrance a comforting presence, were already beginning to droop, their petals curling inward, as if sensing, even then, the fragility of what we had so confidently declared eternal.