She was never able to say those three simple words, no matter how loudly they rang true. He would ask her "Do you love me?" and she would say, "Yes, you know I do" but those three little words that were so easy for him to tell her would never pass her parted lips. Even without this confirmation, though, he knew. He really did. He just knew. He knew in the way her hand would hold his so openly even when her heart was at it's most guarded. He knew in the way she would territorially place her open palm above his knee anytime another woman looked at him. He knew in the way she was looking at him right now, like all she ever wanted was for him to have the world, because even though he never believed it, she was positive he deserved everything.
He knew that she loved him because she agreed to marry him and she was not the type of woman to take up the first offer that came her way, even though he was filthy rich. He knew that she loved him because on the night before their wedding he came home to find a piece of paper with the words "I love you and I'm sorry" scrawled on it in her messy handwriting. He knew that she loved him because if it were anyone else, she wouldn't have left a note.
In the moments after they made love, she was always the most open, the most vulnerable. She would lie beside him, panting, but her eyes would meet his and it wouldn't matter if air was entering her lungs because she always felt entirely breathless. It scared her, sometimes, how he became as essential to her life as oxygen. She knew, deep down, that she didn't have to worry with him, that he wouldn't break her heart. She knew that he deserved more from her. It would be so easy to tell him, to finally tell him that she did love him, she really did, and she wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
This hollow feeling in his chest. This barely-breathing inebriated shell. This wounded puppy-dog look permanently etched across his features. These were all familiar to him by now. He had felt all of these things before and he had lived in the miserable wake of her departure more often than he lived in her presence. He knew the drill by now. She would come to him and he would take her back, no questions asked, because he loved her and would do anything to hold her in his arms again. They would be happy for a while but then something would happen; usually he would screw up and she would leave him with a gaping hole where his heart used to be.
This time was different though, because this time they had made the mistake of making plans, of imagining a future. There was never a future, and he should have remembered that. He only blamed himself but he wondered, bitterly, if she ever had actually loved him. He thought he knew her so well, he thought he could tell by the way she moved or the way her eyes flashed that she did, she did love him. If he knew her so well, though, then how did he not see the signs? If he knew anything about her at all, it was her telltale signs that she was about to run.