The retching. The muffled sobbing. The raw, unfiltered sounds of a man unraveling behind a closed door. It took him several minutes to stop puking and start dry heaving. And another few minutes before I heard the flush.
But the silence that followed was worse.
My mind replays the last few minutes of my own verbal devastation. Every syllable still feels like shrapnel lodged in my throat.
It was as if the moment those three words left my mouth, the air itself shifted. I watched the destruction ripple outward, swallowing the room whole.
I saw the exact second it hit him, when those words registered and his expression cracked. Whatever guilt or remorse or shame he carried—it all drained out, replaced by raw, soul-deephorror.
I wipe my eyes and nose with the back of my hand. My limbs feel detached, like they belong to someone else. I sink back into the couch, numb. Empty. As though every word I’d just spoken took some part of me with it.
And then... he returns.
He doesn’t say anything at first. His head is bowed so low, it’s like his neck muscles have finally given up. Like the weight of what he’s done has finally tipped him over.
I watch him. I don’t know why.
Maybe I want to see if he’ll meet my eyes. Maybe I want him to. Maybe I don’t.
I speak before I can second guess myself.
“Stop with the food deliveries.”
My voice is flat. Hollow. Final.
“Stop the messages. I don’t ever want to hear from you again.”
He nods, but he still doesn’t look at me.
Coward.
But also—good. Because if he did, I don’t know what I’d see. I don’t know if I could handle it.
His voice is a whisper. Cracked. Broken.
“I...” He swallows. “I never should’ve t-touched you, Aarohi.”
That name on his lips makes something in my chest contract painfully. But I stay silent.
He turns toward the door. And this time, he doesn’t hesitate.
He knows he has to leave. And for once, he doesn’t fight it.
He hesitates at the door, fingers trembling.
“I failed you,” he says, voice so hoarse I almost don’t recognize it. “Not just you. I failed on everyhuman level.As aman. As aperson. As someone who thought he was...decent.”
He still doesn’t look at me. I don’t think he can.
“If there were words to take it back,” he continues, slower now, like every syllable scrapes his throat on the way out, “I’d rip them out and hand them to you. But you asked me not to use those words. So I won’t.”
Good.
I don’t want hissorry. Not when it’s always been so easy for him to say. Not when I can’t trust his words anymore.
“Your apologies were always beautiful... andempty.” I mumble.
The flinch taking over his body is almost violent. He nods faintly. I think he’s about to leave.
