Page 28 of Lovesick

“I’ll think about it,” I said eventually.

He nodded once, then turned and left, closing the door behind him with the same gentleness I had once used on him.

Later that night, I sat on my balcony with a blanket over my knees. I let the cold air bite at my skin as I played his words over and over in my mind.

I didn’t know if I owed him that conversation.

But maybe, just maybe, I owed it to myself.

Not for his sake.

But to finally say the things I never said. The things I swallowed just to keep him comfortable.

Maybe it was time to tell the truth. Or maybe it was time to finally cut him out of my life without giving him the chance to apologize once more. To hear me talk aboutusever again.

I had the whole weekend to think about it. And when I walked into the office on Monday, I…

Option 1:

decided not to go talk to him

(go to chapter 11)

Option 2:

decided to go talk to him

(go to chapter 12)

11

EMILIA

I had the whole weekend to think about it, and I decided not to go talk to him.

Not out of spite. Not even out of fear.

I just…didn’t want to.

And that was enough of a reason.

He didn’t ask again.

He didn’t corner me by the coffee machine or follow me down to the lobby. He didn’t linger by my door after meetings or try to casually catch me during breaks.

He simply let the silence stretch between us.

And I let it stay.

Somewhere in that silence, he understood.

I had given him a non-answer, and in that non-answer was everything he needed to know.

That I wasn’t going to sit in a room with him and unpack what he did. That I wasn’t going to hand him the pieces of my heart so he could look at them and say, “Oh, this is where I went wrong.”

He had his chance to see me. To know me. To ask.

And he never did.

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