“Are you serious?” My voice trembles, barely above a whisper. “That’s all you had to say?”
“There was so much going on,” Dmitri mutters, fixated on the ground. “I didn't want to bother you, and if we're being honest—”
“We werealwayssupposed to be honest with each other!” I shout, and a few head whip our direction as I force myself to breathe.
His lips pull into a tight line as he keeps staring at the sidewalk like it holds the answers. “I needed time to process. My head was all over the place.”
“Because of me?”
“Because of the wholenight. It was a stupid fucking move on my part, alright? It’s fine though. It’s out of my system.”
Out of his system.
I’mout of his system.
Weare out of his system.
Whatever pieces of me that were left intact splinter at that moment. Something inside me gives way, crumbling in a way that feels irreversible.
I’d loved him.
Ilovehim.
Holy fuck, Ilove him.
And I’ve been reduced to nothing more than a bad decision.
My heart breaks, then.
Completely, and irreparably.
Noise rings in my ears, so fucking loud I can’t hear anything else as I turn away. The faint sound of his voice lands over the chaos, shouting my name. I don’t stop. My legs move like they’re cased in cement, but they carry me across the commons anyway.
I fuckingrun.
Away from him.
Away from the hurt.
Away from the piece of me that he just killed with his bare hands.
I don’t look back.
I run until the music building is between us, until I can’t see him anymore and the only sound is my own ragged breathing and the distant chatter of students who have no idea my heart just shattered in broad daylight.
I stop under the big oak near the path… the same one we used to claim as ours, that shaded us as we laughed and studied with my head in his lap. The leaves are fuller now, greener, like nothing has changed.
But everything has.
I press my palm to the rough bark, fingers digging in until it hurts. The pain is sharp, nothing like the dull, spreading ache in my chest that won’t stop. A ragged, gasping breath fills my lungs as a single sob slips free. I drag my palm down the trunk one last time before I leave it behind, too.
I’ll never open myself up like that to anyone again.
Never let that part of me breathe.
I’ll stuff it down,suffocateit, because if nothing ever feels that right again, then it can’t hurt this bad when it’s taken away.
It can’t destroy me.
