Ch 18: The Breaking Point

It was doomed to end. She showed signs way before but I still believed in us. But the moment that I always feared came early and came hard.

We had been drifting for months, but I had tried to ignore it. I had convinced myself that our love could withstand the distance, the silence, the growing gap between us. But now, seeing her with someone else, hearing her words, I couldn't ignore it any longer.

I had been patient, but patience had its limits. I couldn't just wait for her to notice me anymore. I couldn't keep pretending that everything was fine, when I felt like she was slipping further and further away from me.

And so, I made the decision and decided to confront her.

It wasn't a planned conversation. I hadn't rehearsed anything. I just knew I had to speak my mind.

I called her, my heart pounding in my chest. It rang a few times before she picked up.

"Hey," her voice was warm, but there was something different about it now, something distant. It was like she was speaking to a stranger.

"We need to talk," I said, my voice strained.

She paused. "About what?"

"About us." I could feel the weight of those two words. The moment we spoke them aloud, there was no turning back.

There was silence on the other end. I could tell she was avoiding the conversation, but I didn't give her that chance.

"I saw the picture," I blurted out, the anger and hurt flooding my voice. "I saw you with him. I saw you holding his hand. And you're acting like everything's fine. What am I supposed to think? How am I supposed to feel?"

I waited for a response, my throat tight. But there was nothing.

"What's going on, really?" I asked, my voice breaking. "You've been pulling away for months. You don't call, you don't text, and when you do, it's like I'm just an afterthought. And now, this. I can't keep pretending everything's fine."

There was a long pause, and then her voice came through, quieter than before. "I'm sorry that you are feeling this way."

"That's not enough," I said, my voice trembling with frustration. "I need more than that. I need you to be honest with me. Are we even… are we even still a thing?"

She didn't respond immediately. I could hear the hesitation in her silence, and it broke me more than anything else. She wasn't sure.

Finally, she spoke. "I don't know, okay? I don't know what we are anymore. I don't know if I can do this long-distance thing. I don't know if I can keep being the person you want me to be."

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. It was the truth I had been afraid to hear, but it was also the truth I had needed to hear. And in that moment, I knew that whatever we had—whatever I had been holding onto—was slipping away.

"You can't be with me just because you feel like you should be," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I need to know that you want this as much as I do."

She hesitated to answer and that was it for me.

With my voice firm I said "I don't think we can do it anymore, I can no longer be an option for you, I want to be your choice and If I can't be that, then there's no point on wasting my time"

I cut the phone off without saying another word. I sat there in my room, staring at the screen of my phone, the emptiness settling over me like a heavy blanket. The truth had sunk in, but it didn't make the pain go away.

I thought she would text or call me back but I guess I was right all along. She never seemed serious about our relationship. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't force her to feel something she didn't feel.

It wasn't just the distance. It was more than that. The love I had poured into this relationship had been one-sided for a long time, and I had been too blind to see it. She had stopped trying long before I had, but I had held on to hope like it was a lifeline. Now, all I had was the silence between us.