“I had to leave!” Desperation tasted bitter in my mouth.
“I know.” He sounded gentle, like he wanted to comfort me with his tone, like he knew his words hurt. “You made a choice.”
“Not to leave you!” The words clawed their way up my throat, racing to meet him, to make him understand.
“It was the same thing.”
I slid to the floor, grasping at the duvet, but it wouldn’t hold me.
“Joon-”
“No, Kaiya. We’re just making this harder than it should be. It’s too much. I don’t want this anymore. I’m sorry.”
The line dropped.
I tried to call back, my heart pounding in my ears as it rang, begging him to pick up. He didn’t.
I tried again, and again, until eventually the call wouldn’t connect.
I sent him a desperate message, begging to talk it through.
I waited for minutes that felt like hours. He never replied.
I felt it then, the switch, a train changing track, or the definitive click like the lid closing on a box that had contained the narrative of the future I had mapped out for us. A future that never would be.
I broke apart, shattering as effectively as a smashed mirror, the broken pieces of myself reflecting back like millions of tiny could-have-beens.
Chapter 25
Shadows crept across the floor.
Day blended into evening. Evening blended into night. The house grew quiet.
The radiator ticked quietly, and somewhere, an owl screeched.
Gravel crunched under the tyres of a car. The letterbox slapped against the metal fitting.
“Post’s here,” Dad called from somewhere in the house.
Mum’s voice came from outside my door, muffled through the wood.
“Love, is the heating on? It’s a bit nippy.”
And then-
“Ky, are you up? Good grief, it’s like a fridge in here, why’s the window open?”
She moved across the room and pulled the window shut.
“Why are you still in bed? Are you sick?”
I pulled the duvet over my head.
“Okay, baby. I’ll leave you to it.” Her voice was quieter, the voice you used on the convalescent. A gentle hand pressed briefly to my shoulder. My door closed.
Shadows crept across the floor.
The radiator ticked quietly.
