“You loved him. Things got complicated, but you still loved him. That sort of thing doesn’t just disappear overnight. It takes time to adjust, and it’s normal to feel like this.”
“I know,” I say with a sigh. “But I feel like a splinter is jammed beneath my skin, and I can’t get it out.”
“You’re allowed to miss him and wonder if it was the right call.”
“Was it? The right call, I mean,” I say.
“I think you made the call you needed to make in the moment. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. But only time is gonna tell you if it was for the best.”
I nod, but the knot in my chest doesn’t loosen. It didn’t feel like this when I left Geliy. It feels like a completely different sort of pain. A deep, all-consuming hurt.
At the end of the day, Eric stops by my desk. Janet left a couple of minutes ago, and I’m just packing my things up. He leans on the divider wall, arms crossed, his cologne thick in the air. “Working late, Avelina?”
I keep my gaze on my papers, shifting a little in my chair as I sense his eyes on me. “I just finished up the draft outline.”
“Good. Great initiative.” The smile I catch doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You know, you’ve been a real asset here.”
I force a polite smile. “Thank you.”
He smiles back, his eyes wandering down my body, causing a shiver of disgust to roll through me.
But he lingers, the heat of his gaze like a hot spotlight.
“If you’re ever looking to move up, I’ve got a few projects in mind that could use someone of your background,” he carries on.
Another strained smile from me. “I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”
He pats my shoulder, making me tense, before he walks away.
Air whooshes from me in an exhale I didn’t know I was holding. I pack up my stuff and head out before Eric can do anything else to send my mind reeling.
Back at the apartment, I sit on the couch with Sofia to my side and Leon in a bouncer, a bowl of mac and cheese in front of me. Queenie is curled up on Sofia’s lap.
I can’t help the way my eyes drift to my phone. I know there’s no message. And I know it’s wrong to wonder if he’s still thinking about me—really wrong because I’m the one who left. Still, I glance at it like maybe tonight’s different. But I know it’s not.
Later, the last conversation he and I had replays constantly when I’m alone in my bed. The way he looked at me. My hope that smashed to sharp shards as I asked him to come with me. The way his voice cracked when he said he couldn’t. The way I hoped up until the very last second that he’d change his mind.
I shouldn’t be wallowing as much as I am now. I should be feeling like I made the right choice.
But I just feel hollow.
Maybe falling for a man like Viktor was setting myself up for disaster—and it was never going to end any other way.
But God, I miss him. So, so much.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I press into the pillow at my side, pretending the pressure is a solid wall of muscle. That if I hold still long enough, I might remember how it felt to be wrapped in his arms.
But it doesn’t work.
It’s just a pillow.
And I’m pathetic for wishing it would be something else.
The silence around me isn’t peace.
It’s punishment.
And I’m the one who sentenced myself to it.
