Falling Out
Falling out of love was stunningly easy to do, given the time.
It was probably safer, in the long run. Sensible. Spurned love was her rage, the razor that edged her cruel words and spurred her malice but, hurt him though it may, she couldn't spare herself the cut of her own blade on the backswing. And, once, that had seemed acceptable—she would bleed and hurt so long as she could hurt him, too, and it was a more than fair trade. Pain got old, her own senses grew numb but for the sight of the burning hurt in Gideon's eyes…that didn't fade, it was as satisfying as ever.
Until, very suddenly, it just wasn't.
When it was gone she couldn't even say she let it go because it was nothing so intentional as that. She simply looked at him one day and felt nothing at all and it surprised no one more than it surprised her. She didn't hurt, didn't hate, didn't have a single scrap of emotion to waste on him any longer. She'd tried to bleed her love onto the floor, and now she was left, finally free, crisscrossed with unnecessary scars and clumsy-handed stitches.
It was inevitable, that falling away, but Marlene broke herself in the meantime, struggling in animal desperation against chains that would've unlinked themselves if she'd given them the time.
Marlene turned away from Gideon, too broken down to do herself any more injury, too tired to love him any longer (because it had always, even in its ugliest, cruelest moments, been love. Love takes so many forms, wears so many faces and not all are beautiful and clean.)
And that was the end for Marlene; the sight of his face inspired nothing but indifferent weariness. In the fading, dying world, that love faded and died with the light and she couldn't care enough to mourn it when there were so many things more worthy to miss.