Tiana did not change suddenly.
She did not shout.
She did not accuse.
She did not demand explanations or closure.
She simply became unavailable.
When Joshua called, she answered with the same softness she always had—but with distance woven into her voice.
"My boss asked me to stay in the shop today," she said once.
"I won't be able to come. Sorry, baby."
Another day, it was different.
"My dad is around. Maybe another time."
Her excuses were gentle, believable, untraceable. She never refused him outright. She never sounded angry. She stayed polite, familiar—safe.
Joshua did not notice.
He wasn't listening closely enough to hear the shift. He was not invested enough to feel the absence. In his mind, Tiana loved him. That was a constant. A certainty.
She would come around eventually.
Because she always did.
Joshua still believed he owned something sacred—not her heart, but her history. He had been the first to see her nakedness. The first to take her virginity. The first to claim I was there before anyone else.
That title mattered more to him than love ever had.
So when she became distant, he dismissed it.
"She's just busy," he told himself.
"She'll show up before I return to school."
Meanwhile, his real affection bloomed elsewhere.
With the girl from school, his laughter returned. His attention sharpened. His effort multiplied. He loved her loudly, recklessly, without calculation. With her, love felt exciting—not demanding.
Tiana was convenience.
Familiarity.
Control.
And control does not panic when it senses loss—it assumes obedience.
Tiana, on the other hand, was learning the strength of silence.
Every excuse she gave healed something in her. Every boundary she placed quietly returned a piece of herself. She stopped waiting by the phone. Stopped rearranging her days around him.
She still smiled when people spoke to her. Still walked through the barracks like nothing had changed.
But inside, something had ended.
Joshua had lost her long before he realized it.