The day was cold, too cold for an afternoon with the sun still hanging in the sky. It almost suited the situation they were in.
Irina was crying, her eyes swollen and red. She had been crying since the night before. She didn’t understand why it was so hard to make him see that she cared too much about him.
They had been together for years, and none of it had been easy. She wasn’t like him, but lately it felt like she was becoming him, slipping into the life she had always tried to avoid.
She could have left. Her friends had told her more than once. But she had always believed she could change him.
“And what do you want me to do, mh?” Sebastian asked, his voice edged with familiar annoyance.
She didn’t reply, not because she was ignoring him, but because if she spoke, her voice would break.
So she stayed silent, her back pressed against the wall of the abandoned park. The same place where he used to do his deals. Where she had first tried what he gave her, just to understand what was so good about it.
There had been nothing special.
But once she started, she couldn’t stop.
And he never tried to stop her.
“I just want to be a normal couple,” she said at last, wiping her tears, refusing to look at him. “I want you to be better, and I want to get better… maybe find a job–”
He cut her off immediately.
“Do you think a proper job would give me enough?” he asked, leaning closer. “Do you think another job is going to give me enough to give you everything you have? I’ve been giving you everything with this. So if you don’t like it, go. Find someone else who can.”
Irina swallowed her tears, still not looking at him. She knew if she did, she would regret everything she had decided before coming here.
‘If he doesn’t want to change, then I’m leaving him.’
But she knew that was a lie.
She didn’t even need to look at him to know the truth.
She wasn’t going to leave. She could never leave him.
She loved him, and somehow, she still believed she could fix him.