i can't do well (when you're gonna leave me)

Stella promised herself that she wasn’t going to cry today. By eleven o'clock this morning she’d already broken that promise about three times. Ugh, how ridiculous. She’d spent half the morning crying, and for what?

So what if Jiwoo hadn’t kissed her goodbye this morning, that was fine. Whatever. People forget things, get busy. People feel stressed sometimes, Jiwoo was no exception to that. Except it wasn’t just this morning, it hadn’t been just this morning for weeks now. 

She’d missed dinner three times already this week. It was only Thursday. And don’t even start on the whole falling asleep on the sofa thing. It’d been exactly eighteen days since Jiwoo had climbed into bed with her after brushing her teeth. Twenty-one days since she’d pulled her impossible close and whispered silly jokes until she fell asleep. Over a month since she’d heard her laugh so hard that the noise wouldn’t come out anymore.

Not that Stella was keeping count or anything.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew things changed as relationships evolved, you couldn’t stay in the honeymoon phase forever. Life got busy, and yeah, maybe they’d both gotten a little complacent. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that the rest of the morning would be spent with sleepy kisses and pleas of five more minutes. 

But there was a difference between change and disappearance, and that was the part Stella was finding hard to reconcile. 

Friday nights always used to be date night. Neither of them knew when it’d become a thing, it just was. Whoever got home from work first would pick the spot. Sometimes it’d be fancy, other times it’d be the greasiest dirty little fast food joint. Anywhere just to spend time together out in the world. 

Lately, though, every Friday seemed to end with the same words.

"Maybe next week?"

Jiwoo always sounded disappointed when she said it. She'd apologise, mumble something about being tired or about money being tight. Stella would always insist it was okay, that it didn’t really matter.

But it did. 

But what Stella really missed the most was the smallest things. The way Jiwoo would hug her from behind when she was trying to make their morning coffee. The way Jiwoo would end up sprawled across the sofa, head in Stella’s lap demanding head scratches. The sleepy “love you” mumbled into her shoulder before either of them had properly woken up.

At what point had all that stopped?

Stella couldn’t seem to remember. Maybe it hadn’t stopped, maybe she’d just stopped noticing. No, definitely not, she would’ve noticed, and somehow that made it all worse. She couldn’t pinpoint a specific moment when everything had changed, but she knew it had. Not just in her mind, but in her heart.

Maybe she’d only noticed it because she’d been looking for it. 

She hoped she was being dramatic. That maybe she’d managed to convince herself that something was wrong, and that every missed dinner, every late night at the office, every half-hearted answer in response to a question became another tiny piece of evidence she'd collected to conspire against her own mind.

But then there was the phone and the way it always seemed to rest face-down nowadays. 

Jiwoo had never had anything to hide before. Hell, most of the time she’d misplace her phone, leave it out of reach, accidentally unlocked on the kitchen counter. Now it always seemed to be within arms reach, and as soon as it buzzed, she’d pick it up and excuse herself to another room. Just work stuff. That’s the excuse she’d give, with that half apologetic smile that never really reached her eyes. 

Stella tried to force herself to believe it, she really did.

Because what was the alternative? That Jiwoo didn't want to come home anymore? That Jiwoo was talking to someone else? That she'd realised Stella wasn't enough?

Stella couldn’t help but hate herself for having these kinds of thoughts. Jiwoo had never given her a reason not to trust her, not once. She’d never had to wonder who she was with, or what she was doing, because she just knew. Knew Jiwoo wouldn’t do something to hurt her, to hurt what they had.

Would she?

No, she trusted Jiwoo, she really did. She just wasn't sure she trusted her own ability to know when something was wrong anymore.

Her phone buzzing against the desk broke Stella from her thoughts.

Jiwoo.

working late again, don't wait up ❤️

Stella stared at the message, reading over and over again, almost as if staring at it long enough would change anything. Lowercase, like always. A heart, like always. She couldn't decide whether that made her feel better or worse. Because there was a time when Jiwoo would’ve followed that message with two or three more. Something silly to make her laugh, or even a stupid selfie making a ridiculous face. Now it just felt… obligatory. 

Her eyes started to sting again. Oh my God, not again. Seriously Stella? We're crying over a text message now? She dropped her forehead onto the table with a thud. She'd promised herself she wasn't doing this anymore, that she wasn't going to cry every time Jiwoo worked late. She wasn't going to let herself spiral over a text message.

But the tears began to flow anyway. Slowly, at first, then one after another splashing onto the screen of her phone. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie, but it was pointless, because the tears just seemed to keep coming. 

This was so fucking stupid. Jiwoo was working, she had deadlines, goals to meet. People worked late all the time. Missing dinner didn’t mean that she loved Stella any less. It’s not like she’d been cruel. She’d been anything but cruel. She still smiled at her, still asked about her day, still thanked her for making dinner, even when she never got the chance to eat it.

So why did every ‘don’t wait up’ feel like Jiwoo saying she’d rather be anywhere else but with Stella?

Ugh, she hated this. Hated the way her own mind was convincing her something was wrong, making everything into something worse than it probably was. Because if Jiwoo had stopped loving her, wouldn’t there be something more obvious? Something she could point to?

At some point Stella locked her phone and placed it face-down on the table beside her.

She never did answer Jiwoo’s message.

As Stella sat at the dining table waiting for Jiwoo to come home, she kept running through exactly what she was going to say. The more she rehearsed it, the more sure she was that every single version she’d come up with sounded wrong. 

“I miss you” sounded way too needy. “Are we okay?” sounded too vague. “Have I done something to upset you, something wrong?” Too decisive, like she’d already decided she had. “Do you still love me?” No, absolutely not, she wasn’t asking that. 

The problem with asking Jiwoo any of those questions is that she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear the answers. 

The sound of keys in the door pulled Stella from her thoughts. The lock clicked and the door swung open. As soon as Jiwoo saw her, her face lit up completely, the kind of smile that made her eyes crinkle at the sides. As tired as she looked, she was smiling as if coming home to find Stella was the best part of her day. 

“You're still awake.”

Jiwoo’s voice was as soft as it always was, yet somehow that only made Stella feel even worse. How the hell was she supposed to have this conversation when she looked so tired?

“Yeah.”

Jiwoo threw her keys on the table by the door and kicked her shoes off. She paused to rub a hand over her face before sliding out the jacket she’d been wearing. She looked well and truly exhausted, the kind that settles into someone's bones. The dark circles that’d never existed before seemed more prevalent than ever.

“Did you not see my message?”

“I wasn’t tired.”

“Mhm.” Jiwoo wandered over to where Stella was sitting without saying another word, stopping beside her. One hand settled against the back of Stella's neck before she leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss against the top of her head. “I missed you.”

Stella closed her eyes and tried incredibly hard to contain the sigh threatening to come out. 

Jiwoo used to kiss her properly. Not on her forehead, not on her cheek, her. She used to cup her face and kiss her with a kind of longing that you’d expect from lovers who’d spent weeks apart. Used to steal kisses when Stella was trying to tell her to do something, when she was trying to clean her teeth. 

Where along the line had that changed? Where had the passion disappeared to? 

Stella should’ve felt comforted by the kiss, she knows she should’ve. But all she could seem to think was that the kind of kiss Jiwoo had given her was definitely the kind you give to someone you love, yes. But not the kind you give to someone you’re in love with. 

Jiwoo’s eyes lingered on Stella for a while, waiting for her to speak. Stella never managed to stay quiet for too long, and right now she was being way too quiet. Normally she'd be talking by now, asking about Jiwoo's day, telling a story about her own. Instead she was just staring down at the table as though it held the answer to something.