35. Mariana
Mariana
I knew it was coming, I had been waiting for it. I was the one who let the silence stretch too far, let it grow too thick, until it wasn’t space anymore… It was a wall.
A heavy, suffocating wall built brick by brick with every unanswered call, every ignored text, every time I let my phone ring in my hand until it went silent again.
Sebastian had given me time, more than I sure as hell deserved. He had called, texted, checked in, even when I gave him nothing to hold on to.
He had waited for me…fuck, he had waited, for me to come back to him, for me to let him in. He had been waiting all this time for me to stop pushing, stop running, stop letting my grief and my fear swallow me whole.
But I never did, I couldn’t, my fear had crippled me. My fear wouldn’t allow me to do anything other than choose what felt safe—distance, silence, and escape route.
And in spite of all of that, in spite of everything I’ve put him through these last few weeks, here he was, still standing on the other side of that wall, still refusing to walk away. And shit, I am so damn scared of what I have to say, of what I have to do right now.
The knock at the door was sharp, deliberate, and unyielding. A sound that cracked through the quiet of my house, splintering the fragile calm I had spent the last few weeks trying to convince myself was real.
I had been sitting on the couch, staring at nothing, numb from the inside out. But now, with the sound of him at my door, everything inside me locked up, I was frozen.
My pulse thundered in my ears, my breath lodged somewhere between my ribs, my body stuck between fight and flight, knowing neither would save me from what was coming. I stared at the door, heart hammering, waiting for the moment I’d have to destroy him.
"Don’t answer it."
"If you don’t answer, he’ll leave."
But I knew better, Sebastian wouldn’t be Sebastian if he just walked away. He wasn’t going to just give up…not without a fight.
A second knock came—harder, more urgent. Then his voice, low, rough, frayed around the edges. "Mariana."
I swallowed, my nails digging into my palms.
"I know you’re in there."
I squeezed my eyes shut. Sebastian…I knew that voice, the edge of exhaustion beneath the frustration, the ache beneath the anger.
I knew the way his breath hitched when he was trying to hold himself together, the quiet strain in his voice when he was this close to breaking. And fuck, I hated myself, because I was the one hurting him.
But I knew it was better this way, or at least that’s what I told myself over and over, like a prayer, like a promise…But it still didn’t feel true.
Silence stretched thick and heavy between us. For a split second, I thought maybe he’d given up, that he had left.
One more knock, this time, softer. Then…"Please."
The word shattered something inside me, I hated the way my body responded to it. The way my chest ached, the way my hands trembled, the way my entire being fought against what I was about to do.
I could feel it in my bones, this was the moment. The moment that I knew I wouldn’t be able to take back. The moment that would change everything.
Yet, I pushed off the couch, my legs moving before my mind could stop them. I reached for the handle, opened the door, and looked at the love of my life—the man I was about to destroy.