Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Wrong Love : Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 8

I would remember, later, that the knock came three times. Not two. Not one long one. Three short, careless knocks, like whoever stood on the other side had no idea they were about to end something.I was still catching my breath when I heard it. My back was against the wall of a dorm room that wasn't mine, my shoes still on, my phone somewhere in the tangle of sheets. Rhydian went still beside me so fast it was like someone had switched him off."That's him," I whispered."I know."Neither of us moved. My heart was doing something violent and stupid against my ribs, and for one absurd second all I could think was: I am going to lose everything in the next ten seconds. Not because of what we'd done. Because of what it would look like. Because of who was on the other side of that door.Rhydian reached over, very slowly, and laced his fingers through mine. He didn't say it would be fine. He never made promises he couldn't keep. He just held on, like that alone might be enough to kee

I woke up determined to be normal.That was the whole plan, as far as I'd let myself think about it — get up, go to class, don't mention the call, don't mention the lounge, don't mention the words prove you trust me that had kept circling my head half the night like something caught in a drain. Normal felt like something I could still choose if I just held my face the right way.I almost believed it, walking across the quad with my coffee going cold in my hand. The morning was bright in that thin, indifferent way mornings are when nothing around you knows what happened the night before. Students cut past me in twos and threes, laughing about things that had nothing to do with me, and for a few minutes I let myself borrow some of that lightness. I told myself the conversation with Valerian had been a fight, not a fracture. Couples fought. This didn't have to mean anything.Prove you trust me. The words kept surfacing anyway, uninvited, no matter how many times I pushed them back und

I woke up already reaching for my phone.It was a small thing, the kind of habit that doesn't ask permission before it happens. My hand found the nightstand before my eyes had even opened all the way, fingers closing around the phone like they'd done every morning for two years, expecting the same small glow waiting there. Good morning. Or a complaint about traffic. Or nothing important at all — just proof that I existed somewhere in his day.There was nothing.I lay there staring at the blank screen for longer than I want to admit, and it took me a full minute to understand what had actually woken something sharp and unfamiliar in my chest. Not the empty screen itself. The fact that I'd been expecting it to be full. Twelve hours after telling him I was done, some stubborn, unlearned part of me was still waiting for him to prove I hadn't meant it.I set the phone down without checking it again. That felt like its own small victory, even if nothing about the rest of the day was going t

I almost cancelled three times before I made it to the restaurant.Each time, I told myself the same thing: I wasn't going to fix anything, and I wasn't going back. I was going to say what I hadn't said clearly enough the first time, so there would be no room left for him to twist it into something smaller than it was. That was the whole plan. Say it plainly. Leave.I'd chosen my clothes carefully that morning, not for him, but for myself — something that made me feel like the version of me who had walked away in the courtyard, not the version who used to check the mirror twice hoping he'd notice the effort. I practiced the words on the walk over, quiet under my breath, until they stopped sounding like a speech and started sounding like something I actually believed.He was already seated when I arrived, at the corner table we used to call ours, like he'd chosen it on purpose. He stood when he saw me, pulled out my chair the way he always had, and for one disorienting second, my body