Chapter 3 The Truth I’ll Never Spill

Lyssa POV

The stairs feel steeper than they ever have, each step feels like a small betrayal of the strength I’m trying to hold onto.

Behind me, his footsteps follow, quick and determined, the way they always did when we were younger whenever he thought I was hurt. I didn’t turn back, can’t. If I did, I’ll break down in tears right in front of him and this time, he would know something wasn’t right with me.

“Lyssa.” His voice reaches me before he does. “Wait.”

I reach the door to my bedroom, our bedroom for the last three years and push it open.

He is right behind me now. I feel the presence of him before his hand settles lightly on my shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asks, softer this time.

I knew he wouldn’t believe me if I said I’m fine. He never has, not once in fifteen years whenever he sees me off mood. I had to just say something else.

So I turn around slowly, letting his hand fall away, and walk the few inches until I’m close enough.

I force my voice steady. “Today is my birthday, Zeta. And it’s been stressful preparing the decorations.”

His face changes in an instant. Eyes widen, lips part, then press together in a pained line. Realisation crashes over him.

“Oh God. Lyssa…” He drags a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Your birthday. I completely… work has been insane, the flights, Isabella’s messages, I… I saw the balloons downstairs and thought you’d done all that to welcome me home. I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot.”

An idiot. That’s what he calls the man who forgot his wife’s twenty-fifth birthday because the woman he actually loves stepped off a plane. Sure, that’s what he absolutely is.

Strings in my chest snap one by one. I smile anyway.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I understand. Work stress is a lot. Really. Don’t worry about it.”

He shakes his head, stepping closer again, eyes searching mine like he’s trying to fix it.

“No. It’s not fine. Let me make it up to you. I’ll book something tonight, Bali, Santorini, anywhere you want. Just us. A proper celebration. We’ll have a real 7 days vacation before… before you sign the divorce papers.” He says casually. “We will get to spend time one more time before I reunite with Isabella.”

A vacation. 7days of borrowed time where he’ll smile at me across white sand and pretend he isn’t counting the hours until he can leave me behind forever. The bare minimum wrapped in a first-class ticket. I don’t deserve even that, do I? I never did.

I swallow the ache and shake my head gently. “You don’t have to do that. I’m actually leaving for my master’s in a few weeks. I need the time to prepare—visas, packing, reading lists. It’s a lot.”

His whole body stills. Shock flickers across his face. “Your master’s? Since when? And you are just telling me this?”

I shrug, the lie slipping out smooth as silk. “I only got the acceptance email a few hours before you came home. It was… a surprise.”

Another lie. The email has been sitting in my inbox for seven days. I had planned to turn it down, how could I leave him, leave the city where every corner held a memory of us? But now the idea of distance feels like oxygen.

If I stay here, breathing the same air as him and Isabella, I’ll die a little every day. At least three thousand miles away I might learn how to live without the sound of his voice.

He stares at me, trying to read the truth I won’t give him. Then his hand shoots out and closes around my wrist before I can step back.

There is silence. His eyes were fixed on me now and after about a fees seconds, his voice came again. His voice is gentle.

“Lyssa.” He calls. “Your feelings haven’t changed, right?” His eyes still bore into mine intensely. “You still love me like a brother. Nothing more. That’s still true?”

The room tilts. My heart slams against my ribs so hard. I could feel my heart bounding now.

If I tell him now, if I finally say the words I rehearsed in the mirror a hundred times, will anything change? Will he look at me and see the girl who has loved him since she was a kid, who learned what wanting felt like watching him kiss someone else through a bedroom window? Or will he only feel pity, or worse, guilt for the years he spent being kind to the wrong woman?

I want to fall against his chest and wrap my arms around him so tightly, pouring all my emotions to him that maybe, just maybe, he’ll feel something for me.

I want to scream that I never saw him as a brother, that every time he called me “little sister” it carved another piece out of me, that I married him because it was the only way I could keep him close to me.

Fresh tears burn behind my eyes but I blink hard, not letting them show. My facial expression still maintained that normal looks

“Why are you quiet?” he asks, his voice snapping me out of my thoughts.