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He mutters a curse under his breath, leaning over the center console and pulling me into his arms.

If I weren’t this heartbroken, the gesture would probably catch me off guard. But right now, all I can do is rest my head on his shoulder and cry. Let the pain consume me. Let it hollow me out until there is nothing left but this unbearable ache sitting beneath my ribs.

Because apparently, in less than two months, a man can destroy you more thoroughly than another one ever managed in years.

And maybe that’s what hurts the most.

I gave Zayn something I hadn’t given anyone before. My complete trust. My entire time. My whole heart. I let myself believe that this could be different, that somehow, against everything I knew about him, I could be the woman who made him want something more.

For a little while, I actually believed I was.

Now, sitting in Ethan’s car with tears soaking through my cheeks and his shirt, I can’t stop wondering how something that felt so real to me could have meant so little to him.

✨

“If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve planned a vacation somewhere around the country for us,” my friend Ioana tells me.

“I didn’t know I was coming either,” I reply with a small smile.

We met up half an hour ago at a café in the city where she lives. The place is small and charming, built almost entirely out of glass and tucked along the edge of a quiet street overlooking the beginning of a ravine.

Since it’s the middle of the week and early in the day, only one other table is occupied, most people still being at work. The quiet should be comforting.

Instead, it gives my thoughts too much room to breathe.

“How long are you staying?” she asks excitedly. “Maybe I can take some time off and we could at least go away somewhere for a few days.”

Her question reminds me why I’m here in the first place, deepening the sharp ache that has settled permanently in my stomach.

I want to stay until I learn how to breathe freely again, until the pressure crushing my chest finally eases and I can close my eyes without seeing him.

Without seeing Zayn.

Without seeing that video.

Without remembering that the man I trusted enough to love was with other women while I was somewhere believing he was mine.

God.

Other women.

Not just one.

Zayn had sex with three women at the same time.

And I actually thought—hoped, like an idiot—that what we had was enough. That he was satisfied. That he wouldn’t get bored. That maybe, for once, he had found something worth keeping.

The realization feels like a wound I can’t stop touching.

I gave him the chance to hurt me, and he did.

Shaking my head to push those thoughts away, I force myself back into reality. I can’t spend every second replaying that day.

“I’ll be staying for a while,” I answer shortly. “So let me know if you can get time off and we’ll decide together where to go.”

“Prăjitura dumneavoastră, domnișoară,” (EN: Your cake, miss.), the waiter says with a warm smile.

In Romanian, of course.