Page 24 of Lovesick

“You hurt me,” I said quietly.

“I know,” he murmured. “And I’m not asking for anything. I’m not asking to be forgiven. I just…I needed to tell you. It wasn’t nothing to me. You weren’t nothing.” He looked down, then back at me. “You were the only real thing I’ve had in a long time. And I was too much of a coward to admit it until it was too late.”

I stared at him for a long moment. At the man who broke me. At the man who might have just told the truth for the first time.

Then, slowly, I…

Option 1:

reached for the doorknob and closed the door in his face.

(go to chapter 8)

Option 2:

reached for the roses and said, “Let’s talk inside.”

(go to chapter 15)

8

EMILIA

I closed the door.

Not hard. Not with anger. Just...quietly. Deliberately. My fingers lingered on the knob, skin pressed to cool metal, as if some part of me still needed proof that I’d done it. That I’d really, truly done it.

I had.

I listened to the sound of silence on the other side. No shuffling footsteps. No desperate plea through the door. No knock. He was gone. Or maybe he was still standing there, waiting for something to change. But I wouldn’t give him that.

Not anymore.

The lock clicked softly beneath my fingers. Final. Not cruel, not vengeful. Just…an answer. A decision.

I stood there for a long time. I don’t know how long. Time didn’t feel real anymore, hadn’t in days. It had stretched and folded in on itself, warping around each breath, each memory, each ache that refused to settle.

But this moment felt different. Sharper. Like it mattered.

My legs carried me slowly back down the hall and to my couch.

I didn’t sit right away. I looked around first.

At the mug on the coffee table.

At the blanket which had given me comfort for the past days.

I crossed the room and opened a window. Just a crack. I finally needed fresh air. My body and mind deserved it after the step I just took.

I sat down, but not in the same position I had the past week. I didn’t curl up, didn’t hide. I just sat, my back straight. My hands resting on my lap. My feet flat on the floor. Like I was showing up for something.

For myself.

A part of me still ached. Of course it did. You don’t spend months falling for someone, tangling your heart into their hands, only to unravel it cleanly. There are splinters left behind. Bruises that bloom long after the blow. But pain didn’t mean I had to go back to him. It didn’t mean I had to open the door.

It just meant I was human.

He said I was real. The only real thing he’d had in a long time.

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