Love to Hate

They met at the wrong time and somehow became everything to each other anyway.

At first, it was effortless—late-night conversations, shared silences, the kind of comfort that felt like it had always been there. He used to look at her like she was the only thing in a crowded room. She used to believe him.

“Stay,” she whispered once, half-asleep.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised.

And for a while, he didn’t.

Love, for them, wasn’t loud. It was in the small things—the way he remembered how she took her coffee, the way she waited for his texts even when she pretended not to care. They built something soft, something real.

But love doesn’t always break all at once.

Sometimes, it cracks slowly.

It started with missed calls. Then shorter replies. Then words that didn’t feel the same anymore.

“You’ve changed,” she said one night, her voice quieter than usual.

“I haven’t,” he replied. “You’re just overthinking.”

She wanted to believe him.

So she did.

Until believing started hurting more than doubting.

Arguments replaced laughter. Silence replaced comfort. And suddenly, they were holding onto something that felt nothing like love anymore.

“You don’t fight for us,” she said, tears she refused to show burning in her eyes.

“And you never understand me,” he shot back.

They both had a point. That was the problem.

Love turned into frustration. Care turned into distance. And slowly, without either of them admitting it, they began to resent the very person they once couldn’t live without.

“I don’t even recognise you anymore,” she said.

“Maybe you never really did,” he replied.

That was the moment something inside them finally gave up.

The end wasn’t loud. No dramatic goodbye. No running back.

Just two people, standing in front of each other, feeling like strangers with too many memories.

“I used to love you,” she said softly.

“I know,” he replied.

There was a time those words would have destroyed them.

Now, they just… existed.

And maybe that was the cruellest part of all—
not that they fell out of love,
but that they stayed long enough to watch it turn into something they barely recognised.

Something colder.

Something heavier.

Something that felt a lot like hate.