Her eyes close. She nods once, sharp and tight, then brushes past me.
And as the door clicks shut behind her, I stay in that office, surrounded by the scent of her, vanilla and books and something heartbreakingly her.
I stay, even though she’s gone.
Because love doesn’t leave just because someone walks away. Not when it's real.
Chapter five
Ava
Ishutthedoorbehind me too quickly, like if I move fast enough, I can outrun the way he looked at me.
Like I was beautiful.
Like I mattered.
Like I was wanted.
But I’m not. That’s the lie I tell myself because it feels safer than believing anything else.
I lean against the wall and close my eyes, breathing hard like I just escaped something dangerous.
Except the danger wasn’t him.
It was the way I felt with him. The way my heart opened without permission.
The way he kissed me like I was precious, like I wasn’t too much or not enough. Like I was just… right. But I’m not. I’m not right. I never have been.
I’m the girl who was told by her own mother to eat less, talk less, be less.
I’m the girl who got married thinking she’d finally made it, finally been chosen, only to spend three years slowly becoming invisible.
Two of those years without being touched. Two years of sleeping side by side like strangers, of wondering if it was my body that made him lose interest, or if it was just me. Maybe both. He never said it out loud. He didn’t have to.
His silence screamed what my mother always had:
You’re not enough. You’re too big. Too loud. Too needy. Too much.
No one wants a woman like you.
So I built walls. Armor. A life that doesn’t ask for too much.
And then Elijah came along, all fire and softness, and I let myself pretend, for one second, that maybe he saw something else.
That maybe, to him, I could be beautiful. But he’s just being kind. He’s kind to everyone. That’s what he does. That's how he is.
And when he sees what I really am, under the carefully layered smiles and deflections, he’ll leave too.
Maybe not in words.
But in the distance. In silence.
In the slow withdrawal that kills you one forgotten touch at a time.
So I do what I always do. I walk away first. I leave before he can change his mind. Before he sees the soft belly, the stretchmarks, the mess of who I really am. Before he realizes he could do so much better. Because people like me?
We don’t get love stories. Things like that only happen in the pages of my favorite authors, never in real life.
