I never thought about the possibility that they might have been happy for one last moment, so happy they ignored the danger. I never thought about how easy it is to look away from the end of the world if the person you love is right in front of you.
I sob until there's nothing left in me. I sob until my throat burns and my face is swollen and every bone in my body is heavy with exhaustion.
At some point, the sky outside the window darkens, but I don't move. I can't move. If I get up, I might have to be a person again, and right now I can't be that.
Time passes. The shadows on the ceiling crawl across the white paint, stretching and thinning. I stare up at them, empty in a way I've never been.
The silence now is worse than before, because there's nothing left inside me to push it away—no anger, no grief. Nothing.
My hand stings. I look down and see a smear of blood along my palm. I want to laugh, but I can't, not when it hurts just to breathe.
I drag myself off the floor and collapse face-first onto the couch.
I think about what he said, the way his voice shook when he told me he loved me and always had. The way he admitted to being a monster. The way he begged me to tell him how to fix it, like I'm the one holding the blueprints for his redemption.
Fuck him.
Fuck him for thinking I owe him redemption when he ruined us both.
Fuck him for turning me into someone I don't even recognize.
Fuck him for making me love him even now, when all I want is to carve him out of me with a knife.
He wants me to be the girl who forgives. He wants me to tell him that it's okay, that I understand, that I'm grateful to be alive, and that it was just fate or timing or whatever poetic bullshit he feeds himself to make it possible to sleep at night. But I'm not. I'm not okay, I don't understand, and I am so fucking sick and tired of hurting.
I sink deeper into the cushions, shuddering. I could lie here until my body rots. For a minute, I think about it. I think about the possibility of never standing up, never picking up the phone, never responding to another text, email, or knock at the door.
But then I remember his face, that desperate twist of hope when he looked at me, like maybe, maybe, if he groveled just right, I'd take him back. I remember how he said "Crawl" like it was a punishment, how he made me hate myself for wanting to do it anyway, just to be close to him.
I remember how many times I forgave him before, and how it never made anything better. It just taught him that he could keep doing it.
I'm not going to be that girl again.
I am done being the thing he shatters whenever he can't handle his own demons.
The city outside is alive with sirens and angry horns and other people's drama, but in here, there's nothing but the promise I make to myself in the dark.
Never again.I will never let him break me like this again.
I squeeze my fist, my nails biting into the fresh cut on my palm. I press until it throbs, letting the pain anchor me. It's a reminder that I'm still here, still breathing, still capable of feeling something besides grief.
I make myself another promise: I will be the last thing he ever gets to destroy.
The room is completely dark by the time I close my eyes. But for the first time in hours, I don't feel afraid.
The next two weeks are an exercise in endurance. The rules are simple: don't answer, don't engage, don't give him a single fucking inch.
My phone becomes a grenade. Every time it vibrates, the pin ticks down, daring me to pick up. I block him over and over, but he just tries a new number, a new way to reach me.
The urge to answer is as strong as the urge to smash my phone against a wall. I just let it ring instead. He leaves voicemails every single time, but I don't listen. I delete each one as soon as it appears.
The texts are worse. They come at all hours—full of everything I wanted to hear him say for years, like how he loves me, and how I'm the only thing he's ever wanted. He confesses every secret he's ever held, pouring them out through text like they're a thread binding us together.
After the first few, I stop reading them. At least, during the daylight hours, I do. But at night, when the silence is too loud? I pour over each one, hating him a little for saying it now, when it's too late.
The gifts start almost immediately.
A delivery guy shows up the morning after his confession with an armful of white roses and lilies, tied with a silk ribbon. I sign for it with a smile, take it inside, and dump the whole arrangement into the trash without even looking at the card.
