Clara sits beside me, close but not crowding, her knee pressed gently against mine. “Rose… I know this feels unbearable right now, but?—”
“No,” I interrupt, shaking my head hard. “Don’t try to make it better. Please. I need to say this.”
She nods immediately. “Okay.”
I swallow thickly. “I think—” My voice cracks and I have to stop, press my fist to my mouth until I can breathe again. “I think him cheating on me would’ve hurt less.”
Clara stiffens beside me.
“At least then,” I continue, tears spilling over again, “it would’ve been about wanting someone else. About temptation or weakness or being an idiot.” I laugh weakly through my sobs. “This feels… calculated. Like he looked at me every day and made an active choice not to tell me the truth.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, images flashing through my mind without permission. Callum in my kitchen, barefoot and half-asleep. Callum laughing with his team at the rink. Callum’s voice low in my ear, telling me I was safe with him.
All of it feels poisoned now.
“I let myself fall in love with him,” I whisper. “I trusted him with the worst parts of me. And he knew—he knew he was the reason I was hurt, and he still let me love him.”
My chest tightens painfully, grief curling in on itself until it feels like it might crush my lungs.
“I don’t even know who he is anymore.”
Clara reaches for my hand, threading our fingers together. “You don’t have to decide anything right now.”
“I feel like an idiot,” I say again, quieter this time. “Like I should’ve known. Or I missed something obvious.”
“You didn’t,” she says firmly. “You loved him. That’s not the same thing.”
I shake my head, staring down at our joined hands. “Everyone’s going to see me as that girl now. The one who dated the guy who caused her accident and didn’t even know. The one who got played.”
Her grip tightens. “No. They’re going to see a man who made a terrible choice and a woman who didn’t deserve to be caught in the fallout.”
I don’t answer. I don’t know if I can believe that yet.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table, the sound slicing through the room like a blade. My heart stutters instinctively before I can stop it. I already know who it is.
I don’t look.
“I can’t,” I say hoarsely. “I can’t talk to him.”
“That’s okay,” Clara says. “You don’t owe him anything right now.”
I nod, even as my chest aches at the thought of his voice. At the thought of what he might say. Apologies. Explanations. Words that might make this hurt less, or shatter me completely. Right now, everything between us feels like a lie. And I don’t trust myself to hear the truth without breaking all over again.
I curl into Clara’s side, exhaustion washing over me in a tidal wave, heavy and relentless. Outside, the city carries on, uncaring. Somewhere across town, Callum is dealing with the consequences of his choices. And here I am, mourning a love I thought was genuine, wondering how something that felt so safe could turn into the sharpest betrayal I’ve ever known.
“I need you to see something.”
Clara’s voice is careful. I’m still curled into her side, my face pressed against her shoulder, when she pulls back slightly and lifts her phone between us. I don’t look at it straight away. My body reacts before my brain does. My stomach tightening, my pulse kicking hard, a familiar dread blooming behind my ribs.
“I don’t want to,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says softly. “But it’s… different from the rest. This isn’t social media noise. This is their official statement. The one his team just released.”
That makes my chest ache in a new way. Official. Everything our relationship suddenly feels like it never was.
“I can’t,” I say again, “I can’t read another version of him being sorry. Or spinning it. Or?—”
“Rose,” Clara interrupts gently. “I wouldn’t show you if I thought it was bullshit.”
