BROKEN

I watched in disbelief as they dressed up lazily, as if they were giving me enough time to process everything. But how could I? How was I supposed to believe that I had walked in on my boyfriend nailing my best, and only, friend?

“Care to explain what you are doing here? And why didn’t you knock before coming in?” Vincent asked when he was done, waving an accusing finger at me.

I stared at the man in confusion. Was he seriously addressing me? And with such a raw tone, as if I were nothing?

A pang of rage coursed through me. “Seriously, Vincent?” I flared up, anger and pain taking my tone of voice to a higher notch than I had intended. “I just walked in on you fucking my best friend the night before our residency starts, and this is all you can say? How could you two do this to me?”

Marylyn snickered in mockery behind Vincent, while he shook his head, a dark smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “You and I both know that you won’t make it past day one, Leylla.”

My face dropped, and a sharp dagger pierced through my heart once again.

“You could never be a surgeon, Leylla. This is not a calling for nobodies and weaklings like you,” Vincent continued, disdain written all over his face. “Take the advice that I have always given you while there is time—quit!”

Tears welled up in my eyes, blurring my vision. I wept bitterly, and for a long moment, I just let him see how much he had hurt me. How much he was breaking me.

If there was one thing Vincent had been so good at during the three years of our relationship, it was downgrading me, putting a question mark on everything I believed in, and demeaning me. He had never believed in my dreams and capabilities. Never seen my efforts. Never supported me in anything. He had always made me feel so small, weak, and not fit for any task.

“You never saw the good in me… never believed in me… never even tried sharing my dreams or supporting me even a little.” I sobbed bitterly, his words and the silence that followed cutting deeper into my shattered heart.

I blinked hard, cutting off the streams of tears that ran down my chubby cheeks as I swallowed the bitter pill.

I then opened my eyes, full of pain and wrath. “Even if that is how you think of me, Vincent,” I continued. “Was all this necessary, really? Did you have to stoop as low as fucking this cheap thing just to make me realize that I was not deserving of you?”

“You are not good enough for me,” he scoffed, throwing his hands up in the air. “You never were.”

Wow! “When were you going to tell me, huh? After you have wasted all my time here on earth?”

He smirked, shaking his head, his expression as cold as ice. “At least you found out on your own. I no longer have to worry about telling you.”

Again, he didn’t seem apologetic. He didn’t look like he felt the need to explain himself in the slightest. It was as if I didn’t deserve any explanations at all.

I stepped back. The pain was sucking all the energy out of me, but I pretended to be strong. “Why?” I asked.

“What did you expect?” His eyes were filled with disgust and hate as he looked me up and down. “You won’t make it to that dream of yours, and I needed someone who can match my class. Someone who does not only share my dreams but who is able to achieve her dreams alongside me. Unfortunately, you are not that person. Your dream is so unrealistic, and you have decided to make a mockery of yourself by turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the reality.”

The reality? The reality was that I would become a surgeon. I had come too far to drop that dream and that passion.

He then leaned in, just when tears started streaming down my cheeks again. “You are chasing something you can never reach, Leylla. But I commend your guts to have dared to dream and to come this far! Go become a veterinarian or something if you must be in this field.”

That cut me so deep that it tore my heart into pieces.

“And what right do you have to dream for me?” I sobbed, my pain making my voice almost inaudible.

After a while, I dried my tears and pushed the bitter chunk down my throat. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Doctor Vincent De’Luka, to tell me what I should dream of and what I shouldn’t? What gives you that fucking right?” My voice had turned cold by this point, so cold that it made Vincent step back.

“Someone who knows you well, Leylla. I know you can’t do this.” He still sounded so certain.

That is how he always saw me—so incapable of nothing but loving him with all his flaws and strengths.

Another silence rang in the room. Vincent averted his gaze to the side, avoiding my eyes for a moment. Marylyn, on the other side, still hid behind Vincent, her eyes rolling childishly from time to time.

I turned my eyes to Vincent again, and I smiled faintly, bitterly. “I never paid any lecturer for my grades in any exams... unlike someone I know. Is that what disqualifies me in your eyes?” I shot back, and Vincent bowed his head low with shame.

“That is how the rich roll. I can afford to pay even the senior surgeon to make me pass a surgery. But poor and naive people like you have to work your brains and asses off just to prove yourselves. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee to your success even after all that.”

So confident, huh!

“Well, I would rather work the way I do than be decorated with big titles and suits and still have zero knowledge of what the titles stand for. That is how true we poor and naive people are. We don’t cheat our way up, but rather, we work our way up!”

His eyes then softened as he stared back at me sympathetically. “Listen, Leylla…”

“Enough!” I hissed, raising my hand to stop Vincent, who fell silent under my cold command.

Sympathy? That was not what I needed.

I took a step closer, my gaze cold against his. “My dreams are solely mine, and I know my capabilities. I pity people like you who think that just because you have had it all handed to you on a silver platter, you have better chances than us who fight through the ladder. You and I both know that I am more qualified than both of you combined.”

I let that bittersweet truth sink into them before I continued, “I will be a surgeon, not to prove anybody wrong, but because I believe in myself and nobody is qualified to tell me otherwise. Not even you, Doctor Vincent De'Luka, because you don’t matter to me at all from this moment on. I only wish you had opened my eyes earlier. Adios!!!”

I could see that Vincent was about to say something, his hand reaching out to me. But I was so done! I would not give him a chance to hurt me again.

Never again!

I stormed out, slamming the door shut behind me. I didn’t want them to bask in the glee of the wreckage they had made of me. Didn't want them to hurt and mock me any further.

Tears poured freely once I was out of that suffocating room.

He was my love, my world ever since I had started this journey. The only man I had allowed into my heart. His betrayal was something that I had never anticipated.

It hurt so much. Every piece of my heart throbbed with pain. Every part of me ached. The only thing that rang through my mind was the echoes of their betrayal and their taunting mockery. I was utterly broken. Way beyond any repair.

I let out a loud growl outside, one that caused even the patients to turn their heads. I felt nauseous, perhaps from the stinking smell of their betrayal. But I did not want to cause more scandal by throwing up in the hallway. 

I took off, crying, anger fueling my every step.