CHAPTER 7

THE THINGS LOVE NEVER PROMISED

I didn't cry until I got home.

Perhaps that was the part that hurt the most. I had spent the entire drive convincing myself that I was fine. I had stopped at traffic lights, waited behind slow moving cars and even waved at a neighbour who happened to recognize me on my street. Anyone looking at me would have thought it was an ordinary evening. Only I knew that something had quietly fallen apart inside me. Adrian's words had followed me all the way home like my shadow, refusing to leave no matter how many times I tried to think about something else. “Elena, I never said we were”. 

They were simple words. Honest words. Yet they had somehow undone years of silent hope in the space of a few seconds.

The house was already quiet like a grave yard when I stepped inside. My mother had left the porch light on as she always did whenever I came home late, and for reasons I couldn't explain, that small act of love nearly brought tears to my eyes. I slipped off my shoes by the door and climbed the stairs as carefully as I could, grateful that everyone had already gone to bed. 

I wasn't ready to answer questions. I wasn't ready to hear my own voice. The only thing I wanted was to be alone long enough to convince myself that my heart would eventually stop hurting.

I didn't bother changing out of my dress. I simply sat at the foot of my bed, staring at nothing in particular while the room slowly disappeared into silence. My eyes drifted to the framed photograph on my bookshelf. 

Adrian and I couldn't have been older than ten. We were both covered in paint after ruining an art competition, grinning proudly at the camera as though making a mess had been the entire goal. I smiled without meaning to before the smile slowly faded. There had never been a time in my life when Adrian wasn't somewhere in it. Every important memory somehow led back to him. Birthdays. School. Graduation. My first dance recital. Even the opening day of the studio. He had been there for all of it. Looking back now, I couldn't decide which hurt more losing the future I had imagined with him or realizing that every beautiful memory I owned suddenly felt different.

Unable to bear the silence any longer, I opened the bottom drawer of my wardrobe and took out the old notebook I hadn't touched in weeks. It had become a habit over the years, a place where I emptied the words I could never bring myself to say aloud. Some pages held little more than ordinary moments I didn't want to forget. Others were filled with dreams that seemed almost childish now. I turned the pages slowly until I found the one I had been looking for.

I think I'm in love with Adrian.

I had written it years ago after he waited outside my dance class in the rain because he didn't want me walking home alone. I remembered teasing him for standing there soaked instead of waiting inside his car. He had only shrugged and told me he had promised my mother he wouldn't let me walk home by myself. I remembered laughing all the way home that evening, wondering if anyone had ever been loved as quietly as I was.

A tear landed on the page before I realized I was crying.

I closed the notebook immediately and pressed it against my chest, but the tears refused to stop. They came without sound, rolling slowly down my face until they soaked into the fabric of my dress. It wasn't Adrian's fault. That thought returned again and again. He had never promised to love me. He had never asked me to wait for him. Somewhere along the way, I had mistaken his presence for a promise, and now I had no one to blame except myself.

My phone buzzed softly on the bedside table.

I already knew who it was before I reached for it.

Did you get home safely?

I stared at the message for what felt like forever.

How strange.

After everything that had happened, Adrian was still worried about whether I had reached home safely. That was who he had always been. Kind. Thoughtful. Reliable. He remembered birthdays without reminders, brought me food whenever I worked too late and never forgot to check whether I had eaten. Anyone watching us would probably think I was the luckiest woman alive.

Maybe that was why I had fallen in love with him.

Maybe that was why letting him go felt impossible.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I wanted to reply. I wanted to tell him I was home. I wanted to pretend tonight had never happened because pretending had always been easier than facing the truth.

Instead, I locked my phone and placed it back on the table.

If I answered now, tomorrow would look exactly like yesterday.

And I wasn't sure my heart could survive another day of loving a man who had never been afraid of losing me.