'Distorted Love'
D.G
It wasn’t a breakup.
Not in the traditional sense. No door slammed. No suitcases packed. No sobbing beneath fluorescent lights. They were still in the same house. Still slept in the same bed. Still kissed each other goodnight.
But something had fractured.
Time stuttered around them.
At first, it was minor. She’d reach for his hand and it wasn’t there—but then it was, a moment too late. He’d hear her voice echo before she spoke. Songs played out of sync on the same speakers. Her heart skipped a beat during breakfast. Then his did at dinner. They joked about it.
“Maybe we’re out of phase.”
“Maybe we’re quantum entangled.”
But the laughter was hollow, and the silence between them got longer. Louder. Bent at the edges. He began waking up before he fell asleep. She would dream of conversations they hadn’t had yet—and find his responses waiting on slips of paper he never remembered writing. They were always one verse apart. In the third and fourth weeks, reality began to layer.
She’d see him sitting on the couch, smiling. Then blinking, she’d see the same scene, but he was crying. Or gone. Or smiling too wide. Their house started shifting. Chairs faced different directions every hour. Mirrors reversed text. Doors led to closets full of their own shadows. Still, they never said they’d broken up. Because they hadn’t. Because something was still holding them together. Something that twisted every time they looked too closely.
One night, their voices fell out of sync.
He’d ask a question.
She’d answer two seconds too late.
Then half a verse early.
They argued, but the arguments fell sideways, bleeding into laughter, then tears, then silence again. He tried to write her a letter, but the ink curled backward. She left him a note, but it dissolved when he touched it. Still, they stayed. Each heartbeat felt like a thread tugged from opposite ends. Their chests ached, not from pain, but from being stretched between too many versions of what they used to be. At breakfast, he handed her a cup of coffee. She looked at it, tilted her head, and whispered,
“I already drank this.”
He blinked.
The cup shattered.
Blood ran, but they weren’t sure whose.
They cleaned it up together.
Because that’s what you do when you’re still in love.
Even if love isn’t where it used to be.
Even if your hearts no longer beat in the same timeline.
Even if, some nights, you’re not entirely sure the other is still there at all.
But the song keeps playing.
And their feet still move to it.
One step behind.
One step ahead.
Forever skipping.
Forever distorted.