Chapter Forty #2
It did matter.
Of course, it mattered.
“I need to think,” I said, backing up a step. “I just...I need some space.”
He stared at me, chest rising unevenly. “But...I love you.”
“I love you, too. That’s the problem. I can’t think straight when I’m around you. It overshadows everything else—every rational thought, every part of me that knows I should be angry.”
He didn’t speak. Neither of us did. The silence stood between us, delicate as breath on glass—one wrong word and it would shatter.
Then—so slow I might’ve dreamt it—a tear slid down his cheek.
It caught the faint morning light as it fell, a wounded confession born from what his voice couldn’t carry.
I’d never seen him come apart like that.
Not when his mother died, not when he spoke of his father’s cruelty, not even when he bared the loneliest corners of his childhood.
And still, here he was, unraveling at the very thought of losing me, his love so fierce it stripped him of every defense he’d ever built to survive this world.
Was that what love was meant to do? Break a person open until there was nothing left but truth?
And if it was...then what did that make me—the one standing here, watching him fall apart, knowing I was the reason his heart was getting torn to shreds?
I reached out, my thumb brushing the tear from his cheek. “I’m sorry. I just need time.”
He shook his head instantly. “I’m not letting you go.”
“You will,” I said softly. “Because you’re not the type of man who’d ever force me to stay when I’ve asked for space.”
He didn’t like it. There was a storm of helplessness and pain brewing behind his eyes. But he knew I was right. He knew he could never do that to me.
“I don’t know how to go about my day,” he murmured, “or sleep, or breathe without you.”
I couldn’t respond. My throat closed around every word that wanted to come. So I just stood there, unmoving, as he finally nodded, resigned and broken, but still gentle.
“I’ll leave,” he said. “You stay here.”
I frowned. “No, this is your apartment. I can’t kick you out.”
“This is your home. I’m not going to let you go back to suffocating in your family’s house just because I screwed up. Stay here, Lillian. I’ll leave.”
He turned toward the closet and pulled out a duffel bag. I couldn’t bear to watch him pack, so I left—my feet carrying me to the living room on autopilot. I curled onto the couch, drawing my knees to my chest, each second stretching into an eternity.
When I heard his footsteps behind me, I didn’t look.
Then his arms were around me, lifting me, holding me against his chest. My legs wrapped around his waist, clinging to him before my mind could catch up.
His hands gripped my thighs, slid up over my hips, along my back, like he needed the contact to stay upright himself.
I could feel his heartbeat—uneven, desperate—as he whispered into my hair, “I can never truly express how sorry I am for lying to you, and more than that, for hurting you. But I’ll never stop trying.
I’ll give you the space you need, the time you need. I’ll wait for however long it takes.”
He pulled back slightly, his palms framing my face. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips, but his eyes were heavy with grief.
“You are the very best thing that has ever happened to me, Dr. Lillian Tariq,” he said.
“You are my light. The sun can only rise and set in my world if you’re still in it.
You asked me what my biggest fear is. It’s this.
Losing you. Don’t give up on me. I’ll never give up on you.
” His mouth found my ear, murmuring ruinously, “My heart molded itself around your shape. If it shifts, I will shift with it.”
And before I could breathe, before I could say anything, he kissed me—slow, lingering, inhaling me in—then let me go. The door clicked shut behind him, and the silence that followed wasn’t just quiet. It was absence. It was love, leaving the apartment.
I drifted back to his room like a shadow, every step heavier than the last. The air still carried him—salt and cedar, a hint of his cologne clinging to the walls.
The bed looked untouched, but I knew better.
It still remembered us. The echo of all our shared nights was still pulsing in every crease.
I slipped beneath his sheets, into the hollow he’d left behind. The fabric was warm, steeped in his scent. I pressed my face into his pillow, letting it curl around me, letting it smother the sound of my breathing, my breaking.
Gray fur appeared at the edge of my vision. Steve stared at me for a long second, unimpressed, judgmental, very much on brand. Then, to my absolute shock, she climbed closer. She circled once, twice, and settled against my side, her purr vibrating in a reluctant peace offering.
The tears came in waves, shaking through me until I wasn’t sure if I was crying or just unraveling. Steve pressed closer, like she’d decided I was tolerable after all, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, that undid me more than anything else.
This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? No men, no mess, no love that left bruises on the heart. I wanted peace. I wanted freedom.
Sarah’s words echoed, uninvited. “And maybe that’s secretly what you want. To be alone.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I was built for solitude, for self-preservation, for empty sheets and untouched pillows.
But if this—this blaring silence, this vacant chest, this empty bed—was what I wanted, then why did it hurt so much? Why did freedom feel like loss, and loneliness taste like punishment?
And I knew, I knew that everything happened for a reason, I knew that God was the best of planners—but what was the reason for this?
What was the plan for this? Was it a test or a penalty?
A lesson or a consequence? I kept going through every mistake I’d ever made, every sin I’d ever forgotten to repent for, why, why, why?
The questions rammed into my ribs like bruises, each one heavier than the last until I couldn’t breathe, but the only one who knew how to make me breathe again was gone.
I twisted deeper into his side, clutching his pillow tighter, as if that could hold him in place, as if the cotton could keep him from slipping through the cracks of my resolve.
I inhaled him until there was nothing left to fill my lungs.
The tears came harder, unrestrained, spilling until I could no longer tell grief from exhaustion.
But nothing—nothing—could drown out my mother’s voice, smug and satisfied, looping in the back of my mind.
I told you it wouldn’t last. The words snuck in easily.
You’re not the kind of girl people marry.
You’re not wanted. You’re a failure. Each sentence landed heavier than the last, stacking, compressing.
You’re too much, she said again and again. Too much, too much, too much.
Outside, the world kept spinning, unaware.
Inside, I lay still in the ruins of what I’d chosen, trying to convince myself this was what I wanted.