Chapter 1

MATEA’S POV

The air in our apartment felt heavy, suffocating thick with the silence we’d been avoiding for weeks. I stood by the window, my hands clasped tightly together, watching the streetlights flicker on one by one. Every second felt like an hour. Every breath felt like I was inhaling glass.

He walked in, slamming the door behind him loud, angry, as if just being here was a burden he couldn’t carry anymore. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t even acknowledge that I was standing right there. He tossed his keys onto the table, ran a hand through his hair, and started unbuttoning his shirt like he couldn’t wait to get out of his own skin.

“Where were you?” I asked, my voice quiet, trembling despite how hard I tried to steady it. “It’s two in the morning again, Jace. This is the fourth time this week”

He stopped, his back still to me, and let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Here we go again. Always the questions, Matea. Always the accusations. Can’t you ever just let me breathe?”

“I’m not accusing you” I said, turning to face him, my heart aching so bad it was hard to speak. 

“I’m asking. I’m asking because I’m your girlfriend. Because we live together. Because I worry about you. Or… am I not allowed to care anymore?”

He turned around then, and the look in his eyes shattered me. It wasn’t anger not really. It was exhaustion. Impatience. And something worse indifference.

“Care?” He stepped closer, his voice rising, sharp and cruel. “You call this caring? You call this waiting up and making me feel guilty for having a life? God, Matea, you’re so suffocating. Every time I walk through that door, I feel like I’m walking into a prison. And you —you’re the warden”

Esch word hit me like a blow, Prison Suffocating, Guilty. I took a step back, my knees weak. “I didn’t mean… I just wanted to knpw”

“You just want to control me,” he snapped, his voice cold and final. “You’ve always been like this. Clingy. Needy. Never satisfied with anything I give you. It’s exhausting, Matea. You’re exhaustin”

Tears burned my eyes, hot and humiliating. “I’m exhausting? Or am I just the only one who sees that something’s changed? You don’t touch me anymore. You don’t ask how my day was. You lie about where you are. And when I catch you when I ask for the truth you yell at me like I’m the problem.”

“Maybe you are the problem!” He shouted, and the words echoed off the walls.

“Maybe if you weren’t so insecure, you’d realize that nothing’s going on. But you can’t help it, can you? You always have to make everything about you. You’re so desperate for attention that you invent reasons to be hur”

“I didn’t invent anything!” My voice broke“I saw the messages, Jace. I saw the photos. She was in your car. You were holding her hand. You told me you were at a meeting that night — you were with her.”

He went silent for a heartbeat just one before his expression hardened into something cruel “And if I was? What are you going to do about it? Are you going to leave? Because honestly, Matea… sometimes I wish you would”

The world stopped. The air left my lungs. Sometimes I wish you would.

“You don’t mean that,” I whispered, hoping praying that he’d take it back. That he’d say he was angry, that he didn’t mean it. That he loved me.

But he just looked at me straight into my eyes and said it again, slower, colder, like he was making sure I heard every single word.

“I do mean it. I’ve been meaning it for a long time. We’re done, Matea. We ended a long time ago. You just refused to let go.”

“Because I loved you!” I cried out, tears finally spilling over. “Because I thought we were building something! Because I gave you everything my time, my heart, my life and this is how you throw it away? For her?”

“Stop acting like a victim,” he scoffed, grabbing his jacket from the chair. “This isn’t my fault. If you weren’t so boring, so predictable, so… ordinary… maybe I wouldn’t have looked elsewhere. She’s different. She understands me. She doesn’t demand things from me the way you do”

“Demand things?” I laughed bitterly, wiping my tears with the back of my hand x"I asked for your love, Jace. I asked for your time. I asked to be treated like the woman you said you wanted to marry. And you call that demanding?”

“Everything with you is a fight,” he said, already walking toward the door “Everything is heavy. Everything is work. With her, it’s easy. It’s light. It’s fun. And I’m tired of working so hard just to be with you”

He opened the door, and for one last second, I waited. I waited for him to look back. To say he was sorry. To say he didn’t want to leave.

But he didn’t. He just stepped into the hallway, and over his shoulder, he said the words that would haunt me for a long time.

“Pack your things, Matea. By the time I get back… I don’t want you here anymore”

The door clicked shut. And then silence.

I stood there in the middle of the living room the room we’d picked out the furniture for together, the room where we’d danced to old songs at midnight, the room where he’d asked me to be his girlfriend — and I let myself break. I sank to the floor, curling into a ball, and cried until my throat was raw and my eyes burned.

He didn’t love me anymore. Worse he didn’t even like me. And the worst part was… I couldn’t even blame him for leaving. Not when he made me feel so small, so unworthy, so… nothing.

Hours passed. I didn’t move. The sun began to rise, painting the walls pale gray, and I realized I couldn’t stay. Not here. Not where every corner held a memory that hurt too much to keep.

I stood up, my legs wobbly, and grabbed the only bag I had small suitcase from the closet. I packed slowly, mechanically, shoving clothes inside without looking at them. I didn’t take the ring he gave me. I didn’t take the photos. I didn’t take anything that reminded me of the girl I used to be the girl who believed in forever.

When the bag was zipped, I took one last look around. The empty space beside me. The silence that was now permanent. And then I walked out leaving the key on the table, leaving the life I knew behind, leaving him and all his cruel words where they belonged: in the past.

But as I stepped out into the early morning light, my vision blurred by tears, I didn’t see where I was going. I turned the corner too fast, and slammed straight into a solid, warm chest. Strong hands caught my arms, steadying me before I could fall.

“I’m so sorryI didn’t mean to ” I started, pulling back to apologize.

And then I looked up.

Standing there was a man I’d never seen before — tall, dark eyes, and a look of such gentle concern that it made my breath catch. He didn’t look annoyed. He didn’t look angry. He looked… like he saw me. Really saw me.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly, his voice deep and calm, nothing like the shouting I’d grown used to. “You look like you’re running from something”

I stared at him, at a loss for words. I was running. I was running from everything. But I didn’t know I was running toward something or someone until that exact moment.

“I…” My voice cracked. “I think I’m finally running to something”

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze softening. “Then let me help you. Wherever you’re going… you don’t have to go there alone”

 

TO BE CONTINUED