A/N: Just a little one-shot. Reviews are nice. Thank you.

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I gaze at him through the kitchen window.

Watching him walk away from me is the hardest thing I’ll ever experience. It’s always the same path: through the garden and into the darkest recesses of his mind. The waiting is almost as bad; every time he retreats into himself, I’m left behind to pick up the jagged pieces of his life. I always try to piece them back together, but it’s useless.

He’s broken, and I’m not much better.

Where has our happiness gone? I wish I knew. Unfortunately enough, there is no disastrous occurrence I can blame for the deterioration of our relationship. There is no one else to blame. His mind is going, and I know that sooner or later, he’ll withdraw entirely and I won’t be able to save him.

Heartbreaking detachment—it’s all I’ve come to experience with him, and he doesn’t see me anymore. I’ve never felt less real. I’m painfully invisible, and I feel it every time he looks right through me.

I wish he would still see me.

Last night, I found him at the dining room window, and I asked him what he was staring at. He didn’t bother to look at me; he did not know who I was.

“The garden,” he whispered woefully. “Look at the garden, lover. It’s crying.”

He didn’t know my name. I was not me—I was the nameless, faceless lover, and he remembered me only by the sound of my voice and the torturous rhythm of my footsteps. I reached out to touch him, but he moved away from my hands and resumed his steady watch of the garden, convinced that the silent plants had actually called out to him.

“You’re broken,” I said flatly. “You’re broken, and I can’t fix you.”

He turned to me with an exasperated sigh and a cold, blank stare, and I knew he didn’t recognize me. To him, I was Nobody, and only his garden mattered. Nobody. There was no way to fight the inevitable, so I let him go and saw him slipping even farther away.

Now he stops before the trellis and reaches out to touch a jasmine bud. So curious; so childlike. I can see his fingers shaking from the kitchen window, and I have to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out. Pointless. I remind myself that he won’t hear my cry, let alone understand it, but I stay silent regardless and watch his gentle exploration from the safety of the kitchen.

We planted the garden together.

Three years ago, he told me he wanted to plant a garden. It would be something special, he insisted; something magical and alive. It would always remind him of me and of him, and I was so seduced by the tender charm of his words that I agreed to plant the garden with him.

“Thank you,” he murmured, pressing his lips to mine. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

And then the garden changed him.

He started to spend all of his time in the tiny patch of weatherworn vegetables and bedraggled flowers. I watched him from the kitchen window, and I knew that the garden was pushing him away from the light and into the inky black darkness of his tangled thoughts. Although I tried to understand, I could never fathom the intensity with which he loved the garden…

The telephone rings, and he turns his eyes to the kitchen window with vague disinterest. I ignore the angry ringing and focus my gaze on his face, but I know he doesn’t see me. It’s hopeless.

After a few more rings, the answering machine picks up the call and I hear only silence. It must have been unimportant. Heaving a sigh, I return my attention to the lonely figure in the tiny garden. He’s shut me out; he’s shut out the rest of the world, and I wish I could do the same.

“What happened to you?” I whisper. “What happened?”

There’s no answer. I’ll never know the answer.

He pulls his hand away from the trellis and abruptly starts back toward the house. Hunching his shoulders against the chilly spring breeze, he reaches the door and lets himself inside.

“How’s the garden?” I ask him, my tone quiet and dispassionate.

A moment of silence passes between us, and he turns his head toward the sound of my voice. For a moment, I imagine that I see a spark of recognition graces the emptiness of his features; but then it’s gone, and I know that I've lost him forever. He isn’t coming back.

“The jasmine is blooming,” he whispers. “You should see it, lover. It’s beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” I say numbly, and he nods.

“You’d love it,” he mutters. “You’d really love it.” Punctuating his statement with a nod, he wanders out of the kitchen, and I hear his footsteps on the staircase as he makes his way up to our room. I stand at the kitchen window and let my gaze drift to the garden. The young buds of jasmine wave at me from the trellis, and I find myself walking to the door and letting myself out of the house. It’s a strange feeling. The garden beckons me closer, tempting me with promises of magic and wonder, and I ache for the peace of solitude.

“Beautiful,” I murmur.

I stop at the base of the trellis and reach out to touch the delicately flowering jasmine, yearning to know what it is that he loves about this garden. It’s just a garden.

It’s only a garden.

In this moment, a gust of wind hits me, and I topple backward and land in a group of flowers. A couple seconds pass before I catch my breath, and only then do I realize when I’ve done. Ruined.

I roll away from the flowers and inspect the damage, gasping when I realize that they’ve been completely flattened. The leaves are mangled; the flower buds are broken. Biting back a sob, I realize that every silly dream I’ve had and every foolish wish I’ve made is useless.

He’s lost in the beauty of his garden, and I’ve lost touch with reality. We’re broken, and this time, I won’t be able to glue the fractured pieces of the puzzle back together.

Eternally broken.