It was always going to be Alexander

Sam stood in the elevator as it slowly closed, his eyes fixated on Cindy's receding figure. There was something inexplicable about the way his emotions churned inside him, a twisted mixture of longing, anger, and regret. Her back. It was always her back he saw — walking away from him, leaving him behind. Even now, after all these years, it was the same. Her rejection of him, her refusal to even acknowledge him as anything more than a nuisance, cut deeper than he could ever have imagined.