"Phil?"

I softly called out for my husband yet again. It was the day after Christmas and ever since Ellie left, he's been really upset. He's even locked himself in our bedroom, only letting me in when I got really tired and wanted to go to bed.
"Phil, please open the door." I whispered as I softly knocked on bedroom door.

Much to my surprise, I heard the small, barely audible click of the door before it swung open at a snail's pace, creaking loudly as it did so.

Not wanting to wait any longer, I opened the door and stepped in, making sure to close it behind me. After it was closed, I turned around so that I was facing Phil. Upon seeing him, I was shocked by what I saw, and I even had to blink a few times and squint my eyes to make sure that neither my mind nor my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Phil's eyes were bloodshot and had dark circles underneath them, his cheeks were tear-stained, his hair was disheveled, and his entire body trembled. His blue eyes looked up at my brown ones like a scared child would after they had been in their room crying and their parents had come up to check on them. His eyes had also lost the vibrance that they usually lacked and instead looked like they were a dull gray color rather than an ocean blue.

"Phil..." I trailed off, not knowing what to say. I slowly approached the black-haired and blue-eyes man with my arms extended out towards him. Surprisingly, he accepted my offer, wrapped his arms around me, and rested his head on my shoulder.
"Dan-"
I shushed him before he could continue. "Don't talk. You'll only make yourself more upset."
"But I miss her so much!" Phil protested as tears spilled from his eyes and landed on my shoulder. While this wasn't the first time I've ever seen Phil cry and while it certainly wouldn't be the last, it still hurt my heart to hear his voice crack, to feel his tears land on my shoulder, and sense just how upset he truly was.
"I know you do." I replied in an attempt to comfort him, even though I knew that it more than likely wouldn't work. "But it's too late to get her back now. We thought long and hard about our decision, and I made absolutely sure that she was going to go and live with a wonderful family."
"That doesn't even matter!" Phil snapped as he looked up at me with tears streaming down his face. "We could've found her the richest and kindest family ever, and it still wouldn't have mattered. It wouldn't have mattered because that wasn't what she wanted! What she wanted..." He trailed off as the tears that had been streaming down his face as he spoke hit the ground. "What she wanted was us. She wanted us to adopt her, not the family you chose for her." He sighed as he placed his hands onto his face. "We didn't give her what she wanted. We were too focused on what we wanted rather to even try and consider what she wanted."
I sighed as I ran my fingers through his hair in another attempt to comfort him. "Yeah, I know. But it's too late to get her back now, unfortunately."
Hearing this made him sob loudly, which in turn made my heart ache. I sighed as I made one last attempt at comforting him by asking, "We still have each other though, right?" I couldn't help but smile as I looked down and ran my thumb over his wedding ring. My smile widened when he did the same thing to mine.
"Yes, of course we do." Phil replied as he continued looking down at the wedding rings. "But that doesn't make this situation any less difficult."
"I know it doesn't." I sighed. "But I just want you to know that I'm always here for you when you need someone."
Phil smiled at this, although it seemed very half-hearted and could have possibly been fake.

~~~~~

Everything can change in just a blink of an eye.

Even though I've been living and breathing on this place that we call Earth, there have only been two times in my life where I can truly say that this phrase, a phrase that can be both beautiful and ugly depending on the situation that you apply it to, described me perfectly.

The first time that my life changed in a blink of an eye was when I met Phil Lester, a man that later became my husband after proposing me one fateful Christmas day almost two years ago and a man that ultimately changed my life for the better, as I'm almost one-hundred percent that I wouldn't even be here right now if it weren't for him.

The second time my life changed in a blink of an eye was when Phil brought home an abandoned young girl by the name of Ellie. While I didn't realize it at the time, spending Christmas and the few days leading up to it with her and Phil was one of the best times I've ever had in my entire life, and I'd honestly give anything to have those days back not only to relive them again, but to also change the outcome of them. Phil and I had made a huge mistake when we decided that it would be best for another family to adopt Ellie rather than just adopting her ourselves.
Little did we know, this day was the start of Phil and I becoming strangers not only to each other, but to ourselves as well.

*****

I've become accustomed to the feeling of loneliness once more.

At first, it was really hard dealing with not having felt the embrace or even the slightest touch of the man that was supposed to be your husband in nearly five months. It was really hard dealing with not having felt the passionate kiss of the man you loved so much in nearly five months. It was really hard turning onto your side in the morning only to find that the love of your life wasn't sleeping next to you, and yearning so badly to open your eyes and see those beautiful ocean blue eyes that you fell in love with staring at you with nothing but love in them. But most of all, it was really hard seeing your husband transform into a complete stranger as he spirals deeper and deeper into an endless cycle of depression and self-loathing.

Unfortunately for me, Phil is rarely ever home for an extended amount of time anymore. He spends pretty much all of his time either at the bar or out at various shops buying things such as dresses and toys for Ellie. It was almost as if a part of him still thought that she was still with us and hadn't gone off to live with another family that fateful Christmas day.

Needless to say, Phil's been taking Ellie's absence much harder than I have been.

On this particular night, I was feeling much lonelier than usual. There wasn't really a reason as to why (not that I could think of at least), it was just one of those nights. Growing bored after an at least three hour piano playing session, I decided to go up to the room that was once a guest bedroom before Ellie had come into our lives and was now the only sign that she had ever lived with us after she had gone to live with the family that I carefully chose for her. It was also the telltale sign of Phil's grief over the young blonde and showed just how much he truly missed her. In almost a year, he had transformed the room into a young girl's dream bedroom. It was as of filling up her room with stuff, even though it was full of a sense of false hope and lament, was one of the only ways that Phil could cope with losing the little girl he undoubtedly grew attached to.

*****

"Phil, what the hell do you want?"

That was a phrase that almost always left my mouth whenever Phil called, and tonight was no different.
"You've gotta come down tonight, Danny! There's tons of fun stuff going on tonight! There's music, a lot of food-"
"You say this almost every single night!" I snapped, my tolerance with dealing with Phil's drunken bullshit much lower than usual for some reason. "And how many times do I have to tell you not to call me Danny? That's not my name! My name's Dan! You should know that, especially since we've been married for over a year!"
Phil let out a very drunk laugh in response as he somehow managed to slur out, "Wow, it's really been that long? That's a long time to be with someone!"
I sighed as I rolled my eyes. "Not really. We met in real life for the first time in 2009, and we've been through so many ups and downs since then, so don't tell me that one year is a long time to be with someone!"
Phil was silent for a few moments before he finally replied, "Wait, what did you say? Did you even say anything?"
It took every ounce of self-control not to throw my phone across the room and not scream at the top of my lungs at Phil. Instead, I took several deep breaths before I mustered out, "No, I didn't say anything. Just go off and have fun."
Normally, this would be the part where the old Phil would know that there was something wrong and press the matter, but instead, the new Phil carried on without a care in the world as he said, "Oh, okay, if you say so, Danny."
My hands shook with anger as I ended the call and tossed my phone onto the bed. I couldn't believe how much he had changed in just under a year. Eleven months ago, I had a husband that I could always count on, one that would let me cry into his shoulder, one that would just sit and listen when I needed to vent, and one that gave me love and care when no one else would. But now, I have a person in my life that is a shell of my husband and a person that barely treats me like a spouse anymore. Hell, I'm starting to think that he doesn't even love me anymore, and if he still does, his words and actions sure as hell say otherwise.

*****

You know you and your life are both pathetic when you're lying in your bed at three in the morning while your husband's probably staying at a hotel instead of lying next to you and holding you close to him while wiping your tears away and telling you that everything was okay and that he was there you, no matter-
No.
The other part of my mind interrupted me so quickly that it nearly took my breath away.
Why do you keep allowing yourself to be treated like this?
Why do you keep spending all of these days spiraling deeper and deeper into depression?
Why do you keep spending all of these days trying to fix Phil?
It's so obvious that you can't fix him, so just stop trying to.
What are you waiting for?
Get. Out. Of. There.

*****

The war inside of my mind went on until I could see the faint outline of the sunrise on the horizon, and that was the moment my decision was made.
My decision, a decision that I had been considering on and off for the past couple of days now, was to leave.
Although it broke my heart to say that, I felt like it was the best thing to do not just for me, but for Phil as well.
It was obvious that I couldn't fix him, as my months and months of effort of trying to do so had failed.
But if I could manage to track down a certain someone and convince them to come back, then they could definitely fix him.
Hell, at this point, they were my very last hope.

After making my decision and making sure that it was really what I wanted to do, I packed up only one suitcase's worth of stuff. I then sat down with a pen and a piece of paper in my hand and began writing my heart out.

~~~~~

Dearest My Love, Phil Lester,

I'm loath to do this. I really am. I love you so much. I really do. That's why doing this is going to be extremely difficult, but it is what has to be done. Oh, and you better not try to change my mind. I have been suffering for all of these months just because I wanna find what I could do to try and put your broken pieces back together.

Ellie has been gone for almost a year now. Since then, you've changed so fucking much, and I miss the Philip Michael Lester that never once failed to make me smile brightly, bring me happiness, even on the darkest of days. That's why Ellie's absence changed Her leaving last Christmas obviously affected you way worse than I thought. These days, home doesn't even feel like home anymore. Well, in your eyes, at least.

Anyway, my point is that I'm leaving, and you can't change my mind about it, so don't even try to. Don't text me because I will ignore it, and don't call me because I will instantly decline it not because I don't love you, but because it's finally time for me to let you go, even though it breaks my heart to do so because I never (and still don't) wanted to.

I best be going now. In about an hour or so, you're going to be stumbling back inside, hungover and shoving meds down your throat in order to soothe your pounding headache. You're then going to lay in bed and wait for the hangover to completely pass. Afterwards, you're going to go out, buy more stuff for Ellie, bring it back home, make yourself one of those stupid frozen dinners that you love so much for some goddamn reason, eat said frozen dinner, head out to the bar, get drunk off your ass, stay at the bar until closing time, go find a shitty hotel that will take your drunk ass in at an ungodly hour, leave said shitty hotel early in the morning when your hangover wakes you up, and stumble back home so that you can start the vicious cycle you've been in for several months now once again. I know how this is how it's going to go, trust me. I've seen it happen way too many times already.

But, despite all of the hell you've put me through these eleven months, I still love you. Maybe I'm fucked up for that, but I don't care. You'll always be the best thing that's ever happened to me, no matter what happen.

-Dan

~~~~~

Letting out a heavy sigh, I put the letter down on the coffee table in the living room along with the one thing I've been holding onto since Phil's downward spiral.
My wedding ring.
After taking one last look at the piece of paper and the gold ring lying on the coffee table and one last look around the place Phil and I had come to call home, I began dragging my suitcase behind me as I stepped outside and proceeded to never look back.