finality

When the war came, we fled west, away from the city. This country is big enough we were sure we could hide, maybe forever. Are they really going to care about this little midwest town we're hiding in? Will the tanks roll over main street here?

Everything is so quiet here. I don't know if it was always like that. Lots of the boys went off to war, and nobody talks much, about them, or about anything. There's a TV or a radio on everywhere and it's always mushroom clouds and rubble and bad news from the front. More death totals. Every day another city fell.

I thought this would mean we'd last forever. I thought it would bring us together. But there's something cold and distant in her eyes now. Ever since she saw the end coming, she's been withdrawn. She'll say things like, "What does it matter?" and "We'll die anyway," which seems more true every day, I guess.

We were going to wait out the war together, keep hidden. It would be just us. I thought maybe it would repair those little rips we had in our relationship, that maybe the end would finally bring us together forever.

It turns out forever is a word you only see in movies.