Neighbour

[ 4 ].

You don't immediately confront König about the texts you discovered on his phone. Initially, you keep quiet because you're still trying to comprehend and process the shocking revelation. The words you read are still swirling around in your mind, causing you to question everything you thought you knew about your relationship. However, as you remain silent, a creeping sense of doubt infiltrates your thoughts. You question your own judgement, wondering if perhaps you have misunderstood the situation. You wrestle with the notion that maybe there's an explanation, a context that you're not privy to.

The very notion that König could betray your trust and cheat on you is too painful to even consider. While there are times when he seems distant and you sometimes feel that he doesn't pay enough attention to you, deep down, you still want to believe in him. You want to have faith that the man you love would not hurt you in such an unimaginable way.

And then, there comes a moment, when you find yourself aimlessly standing in the kitchen. Your eyes, almost instinctively, drift towards the window. There, you catch the sight of your neighbour. As your gaze lingers on him longer than it should, a pang of guilt washes over you like a tidal wave. Suddenly, it hits you like a bolt of lightning, the realization that your thoughts are straying, straying into a territory that you never intended to venture into. It makes you question whether you are really any better than König.

Your boyfriend might occasionally engage in harmless flirting with other women. Yet, you are in a similarly precarious situation, guilty of the same act of letting your eyes wander. You find yourself infatuated, even slightly obsessed, with the man who lives across the street. Even now, at this very moment when you should be returning to your living room, where König is waiting for you, you find yourself rooted to the spot, unable to move.

You let out a weary sigh, the weight of the world seemingly pressing against your chest. Your hands reach up to rub your face. The thought of confronting König has been gnawing at you, consuming every waking moment with a dread that's nearly unbearable. You know deep down in the pit of your stomach that you should have a conversation with him. Yet, the haunting fear of the unknown keeps you paralyzed.

The morning has started off on such a high note, with König in a great mood. The last thing you want to do is to cast a dark cloud over the day. So, for now, you decide to push the matter aside, tucking it away in a corner of your mind. Yet again, you make a solemn promise to yourself, a vow sealed with the weight of your own resolve, to broach the subject of his potential infidelity the following day. Tomorrow, you would face the storm head on. But for today, you allow yourself a moment's respite from the looming storm.

However, when the promised tomorrow arrives, you cannot break the silence. Again. Your lips remain sealed, your words swallowed by the anxiety of what his response might be. As the hours turn into days, and then into weeks, you find yourself trapped in a continuous, never-ending loop of silent mornings that stretch out before you, each one more daunting than the last.

Every day, you wake up filled with a newfound determination, believing that today would be the day you would finally gather the courage to ask him the daunting question that's been relentlessly haunting your thoughts, echoing in the empty corners of your mind. But every time the moment arrives, every time you find yourself standing at the precipice of confession, you bite back the words, swallowing them down as they rise in your throat.

The question stays unasked, lingering in the air between you like a ghost, because you're terrified of what König might say. You fear the rejection, the disappointment, the potential heartbreak, and breakup that his answer might bring—you fear the change that might come. But above all, you fear falsely accusing him. And so you remain silent, caught in a cycle of fear and anticipation, waiting for a tomorrow that might never come.