For a second, I thought I might say something meaningful.
Something strong. Something that mattered.
But in the end—
All I could manage was one word.
Barely a breath.
“Okay.”
It slipped out quietly.
Too small.
I hated it the moment I heard it. Hated how it sounded like surrender.
Hated how easily it fit into the silence between us, like it belonged there.
But I didn’t correct it.
Didn’t say anything else.
Because there was nothing left in me to argue with.
So I turned.
And walked out of his room.
The hallway stretched longer than it should have.
Or maybe I was just moving slower.
Each step felt heavier than the last, my body dragging itself forward while my mind lingered somewhere far behind, still trapped in the room I had just left.
“You’ll spend the rest of your miserable life knowing the only man who owns you has decided you’re unworthy of even the basic comfort of his body next to yours. Sleep alone, Elena. Get used to it. Because that’s all you’ll ever have.”
The words looped in my head like a broken record, each repetition carving deeper.
My fingers brushed against the wall as I walked—light, absent touches that I barely registered until I realized I was using them to steady myself.
To anchor myself.
To prove that I was still here.
Still real.
Still... something.
My knees felt wrong.
Unsteady in a way that had nothing to do with injury and everything to do with what I had just heard.
With what I had just accepted.
With what I had just been told about myself.
The words echoed.
