“I don’t know how to go about my day,” he murmured, “or sleep, or breathe without you.”
I couldn’t respond. My throat closed around every word that wanted to come. So I just stood there, unmoving, as he finally nodded, resigned and broken, but still gentle.
“I’ll leave,” he said. “You stay here.”
I frowned. “No, this is your apartment. I can’t kick you out.”
“This isyourhome. I’m not going to let you go back to suffocating in your family’s house just because I screwed up. Stay here, Lillian. I’ll leave.”
He turned toward the closet and pulled out a duffel bag. I couldn’t bear to watch him pack, so I left—my feet carrying me to the living room on autopilot. I curled onto the couch, drawing my knees to my chest, each second stretching into an eternity.
When I heard his footsteps behind me, I didn’t look. Then his arms were around me, lifting me, holding me against his chest. My legs wrapped around his waist, clinging to him before my mind could catch up. His hands gripped my thighs, slid up over my hips, along my back, like he needed the contact to stay upright himself. I could feel his heartbeat—uneven, desperate—as he whispered into my hair, “I can never truly express how sorry I am for lying to you, and more than that, for hurting you. But I’ll never stop trying. I’ll give you the space you need, the time you need. I’ll wait for however long it takes.”
He pulled back slightly, his palms framing my face. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips, but his eyes were heavy with grief.
“You are the very best thing that has ever happened to me, Dr. Lillian Tariq,” he said. “You are my light. The sun can only rise and set in my world if you’re still in it. You asked me what my biggest fear is. It’sthis. Losing you. Don’t give up on me. I’ll never give up on you.” His mouth found my ear, murmuring ruinously, “My heart molded itself around your shape. If it shifts, I will shift with it.”
And before I could breathe, before I could say anything, he kissed me—slow, lingering, inhaling me in—then let me go. The door clicked shut behind him, and the silence that followed wasn’t just quiet. It wasabsence. It was love, leaving the apartment.
I drifted back to his room like a shadow, every step heavier than the last. The air still carried him—salt and cedar, a hint of his cologne clinging to the walls. The bed looked untouched, but I knew better. It still remembered us. The echo of all our shared nights was still pulsing in every crease.
I slipped beneath his sheets, into the hollow he’d left behind. The fabric was warm, steeped in his scent. I pressed my face into his pillow, letting it curl around me, letting it smother the sound of my breathing, my breaking.
Gray fur appeared at the edge of my vision. Steve stared at me for a long second, unimpressed, judgmental, very much on brand. Then, to my absolute shock, she climbed closer. She circled once, twice, and settled against my side, her purr vibrating in a reluctant peace offering.
The tears came in waves, shaking through me until I wasn’t sure if I was crying or just unraveling. Steve pressed closer, like she’d decided I was tolerable after all, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, that undid me more than anything else.
This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? No men, no mess, no love that left bruises on the heart. I wanted peace. I wanted freedom.
Sarah’s words echoed, uninvited.“And maybe that’s secretly what you want. To be alone.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I was built for solitude, for self-preservation, for empty sheets and untouched pillows.
But ifthis—this blaring silence, this vacant chest, this empty bed—was what I wanted, then why did it hurt so much? Why did freedom feel like loss, and loneliness taste like punishment?
And I knew, Iknewthat everything happened for a reason, I knew that God was the best of planners—but what was the reason forthis? What was the plan forthis? Was it a test or a penalty? A lesson or a consequence? I kept going through every mistake I’d ever made, every sin I’d ever forgotten to repent for,why, why, why? The questions rammed into my ribs likebruises, each one heavier than the last until I couldn’t breathe, but the only one who knew how to make me breathe again was gone.
I twisted deeper into his side, clutching his pillow tighter, as if that could hold him in place, as if the cotton could keep him from slipping through the cracks of my resolve. I inhaled him until there was nothing left to fill my lungs. The tears came harder, unrestrained, spilling until I could no longer tell grief from exhaustion.
But nothing—nothing—could drown out my mother’s voice, smug and satisfied, looping in the back of my mind.I told you it wouldn’t last. The words snuck in easily.You’re not the kind of girl people marry. You’re not wanted. You’re a failure.Each sentence landed heavier than the last, stacking, compressing.You’re too much, she said again and again.Too much, too much, too much.
Outside, the world kept spinning, unaware.
Inside, I lay still in the ruins of what I’d chosen, trying to convince myself this was what I wanted.
Chapter Forty-One
Three Months Later
LONELINESS WASN’T NEWto me. It had been stitched into my childhood, an invisible companion that learned to walk beside me long before I learned to be comfortable in its company. Growing up with older brothers who treated me like an accidental accessory and a mother who never wanted a daughter meant I was raised inside a glass bubble of my own making. Thin, clear, and impenetrable. I could see the world through it, but nothing could ever truly reach me.
I used to tell myself I preferred it that way—safe, self-contained, immaculate. I convinced myself seclusion was a kind of strength. Butthis—this was something else. This loneliness was heavier. It sat in my chest like a brick, tugging me down with every breath. It wasn’t the silent kind I’d grown up with, the kind that thrummed softly in the background. This was loud and unrelenting. It carried his voice in its echo, his absence sewn into every corner of my day.
And the worst part—the cruelest part—was knowingwhyit hurt like this. Because unlike living with my family, I’d finally had a taste of real love—of companionship, of feeling wanted and worthy and enough, of everything I claimed I didn’t need, everything I pretended I’d outgrown, when in reality I’d been starving for it. And once you tasted something like that, going back to this kind of emptiness was so much more dreadful, somuch more unbearable. It made my old loneliness feel almost quaint, like something from a different lifetime.
But even that hurt brought its own delicate sweetness—proof of being loved, of loving someone so impossibly deeply.
Khalifa respected my wishes. He left when I asked him to, stayed gone, even when I secretly wanted him not to. He had threaded himself through every thought, every memory, every crevice, corner, and fold of my brain, until trying to erase him felt like erasing myself.
