Pieces of Me

Shattered Illusions

The truth about Lui hit me like a cold shock, tearing through every memory, every moment we’d shared. It was like finding cracks in a piece of glass I’d thought was flawless, only to watch it shatter completely. The texts, the messages—they told a story of another girl, someone he’d been seeing at the same time. People said she looked like me, as if he’d chosen us both for the same reasons, drawn to the same pieces of us that he could easily manipulate.

Confronting him was both heartbreaking and infuriating. When I showed him the messages, he barely looked at them, shrugging off my hurt with empty words. His eyes were cold, detached, as if my pain was an inconvenience he didn’t want to deal with. He muttered something about not meaning to hurt me, as if that would erase the betrayal I felt. But the worst part was his complete lack of remorse, the way he acted as if I were overreacting, twisting the blame back on me.

As he spoke, I realized that he was never going to understand the depth of what he’d done. He was a master manipulator, a man who used affection like a tool, wielding it to keep people close without ever letting them in. And I’d fallen for it, allowing myself to be drawn into his web, ignoring every red flag, every warning sign. I’d let him play me, and now, all I had left were the broken pieces of a love that was never real.

Walking away from Lui was harder than I’d expected. I wanted to hate him, to erase him from my mind, but the memories lingered, haunting me with the echoes of a passion that had once felt so intense, so consuming. Every wild night, every shared secret, every touch—it was all tainted, a reminder of the illusion I’d willingly bought into. I felt foolish, betrayed, and deeply hurt, not just by him, but by my own willingness to believe in something that was never there.

In the days that followed, I found myself grappling with the emptiness he’d left behind. I tried to fill it with distractions, with friends, with studying, anything to avoid the ache that settled in my chest. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d lost a part of myself in the process, a part I wasn’t sure I’d ever get back.

The betrayal cut deeper than I wanted to admit. Lui had shown me my own vulnerability, my own need for validation, and it stung to realize that I’d allowed someone like him to hold that power over me. The pain lingered, but with it came a lesson—a painful, undeniable truth that I needed to face: I couldn’t keep giving myself to people who couldn’t hold me.

In the end, Lui had given me a gift I hadn’t asked for—a harsh but necessary wake-up call. He’d shown me the importance of guarding my heart, of knowing my worth, and as much as it hurt, I knew I needed to take that lesson with me. I was done settling for illusions, for half-hearted affection that left me feeling empty.