Page 157 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

Control.

I let out a breath, shaking my head. “See? This is exactly it.”

“I don’t appreciate being talked to like this,” he continued, his voice calm—but edged. “No one talks to me like this.”

I laughed again, but it broke halfway through. “Yeah. I can tell.”

Silence.

Heavy. Tense.

“I’m not trying to fight you,” he said. “But if you’re going to come at me like this over nothing⁠—”

“Nothing?” I cut in. “You think this is nothing?!”

He didn’t answer.

My chest rose and fell, the air suddenly feeling too thin.

Because for the first time, I wasn’t trying to keep things smooth.

I wasn’t trying to be easy.

I was just… done.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” I said, my voice lower now, but shaky. “Maybe everything that matters to me is nothing to you. I want you in my life… but I cannot say the same thing about you. Is this what I get from you? From your gifts and grand gestures? Your behavior? Because I don’t appreciate it, really. You say you love me, but if this is what I get—I don’t want this kind of love.”

His jaw tightened.

But he didn’t step closer… didn’t reach out… didn’t try to fix it.

So I did the only thing I hadn’t done before.

I stepped back.

“I’ll just go,” I said, walking to the bedroom.

He watched me, expression unreadable.

“Sure.”

Sure.

Just like that.

No hesitation.

No attempt to stop me.

Just… sure.

And somehow, that hurt more than anything else.

I walked out his apartment before I could say anything else.

The door closed behind me with a loud bang… and then suddenly, I found myself outside the building.

The night air hit my face, cooler than I expected, sharper too. The city moved around me—cars passing, distant voices echoing, life continuing like nothing in the universe had just shifted.