" I'm sor-"
"DON'T, JUST DON'T SAY IT. YOU DO NOT EVEN DESERVE TO SAY IT AFTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME! I BEGGED YOU, SCREAMED AND PLEAD, BUT YOU DIDN'T HEED MY WORDS. THEN WHY SHOULD I!"
I yelled with tears streaming down my face when witnessing m...
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I wiped my tears with the back of my hand and forced myself to leave the room. My fingers trembled as I reached for the door, as though my body was still unsure whether it wanted to walk away or collapse right there. I did not look back. I could not afford to. If I turned around, I knew I would shatter completely.
Even as I stepped into the hallway, his face refused to leave my mind. The way his lips had parted, like he wanted to say something, anything, but the words never came. They stayed trapped somewhere deep inside him, buried under years of guilt, regret, and things left unsaid. Whatever he had been trying to tell me died the moment that hopeless look took over his eyes. It was heavy. Final. Terrifying in a way that did not scream but quietly suffocated.
I think he knew it too.
He knew there was no going forward from here. No pretending. No excuses. No hiding behind a façade that had already cracked beyond repair.
I walked down the hallway toward my room, my steps slow and uneven, like my body was dragging itself forward while my mind lagged behind, still stuck in that room with him. Everything around me felt strange. The lights were too bright, the walls felt like they were closing in, and the air itself felt thick, almost difficult to breathe. It was loud and quiet at the same time, my thoughts screaming while the world remained painfully silent.
Just as I turned the corner, Elizey suddenly appeared in front of me.
"Amaira!" she called out, her voice thick with emotion.
"Eli?" I whispered, my throat dry, my entire being drained from the conversation I had just survived rather than lived through.
She rushed toward me and grabbed my shoulders firmly, her eyes scanning my face like she was checking whether I was real, whether I was injured, whether I had disappeared and come back wrong. "Where did you go? Do you know how scared I was? I thought something happened to you!"
Her worry hit me harder than anything else had that night. Harder than the confrontation. Harder than the truth. Harder than the memories clawing their way back to the surface. I did not want to tell her the truth. I did not want to say his name out loud. Not now. Not ever, if I could help it.
She would lose it. And honestly, I did not have the strength to deal with her anger on top of my own pain.
So I lied.
I told her I was feeling suffocated and needed a walk to clear my head.
The words tasted bitter in my mouth. I hated lying to her, but the truth felt far too fragile, far too dangerous to hand over to someone else. I could already see it in her eyes,she did not believe me. Elizey never does. She has always been able to see through me, even when I try my hardest to hide behind calm expressions and half-truths.
But she did not push.
She did not ask another question or demand answers I could not give. Instead, she gently guided me back to the room, made me sit on the bed, and carefully helped me lie down, like I was made of glass and might break if handled too roughly.
