Love Fades With Bygone Days Chapter 03
The breakdown I’d been holding back finally hit in the Uber home.
I curled up in the back seat, wrapping my arms around myself, and sobbed until my whole body ached.
I had thought I was better.
But that night, I knew the sickness was back.
The moment I walked through my front door, I started destroying everything in the living room.
Glass sliced my hand open, but I didn’t stop.
I just needed to make the screaming in my head stop.
Later, I dug out a box cutter Alessia had missed.
I slid the blade out and pressed it against my arm.
Just then, the door burst open.
Tomas rushed in, crossed the room in three long strides, and snatched the blade from my hand.
His eyes were bloodshot, his voice choked with anger.
“Are you insane?” he yelled. “Esme, what happened to you?”
What happened to me?
Maybe it was the eight years that passed without him giving me the wedding he’d promised.
Maybe it was being the last to know he was moving to London.
I remembered waking up in the hospital after the accident.
I’d called him, begging him not to leave me.
I could still hear the coldness in his voice.
“Esme, you need to grow up.”
“Can’t you survive without me?”
I wanted to scream, *No*.
But before I could get a word out, he hung up.
He forgot that my parents were gone.
Besides Alessia, he was all I had.
But Alessia was busy then, busy with her new baby and the husband she couldn’t tell anyone about.
The truth was, I had no one.
During that time, I barely left the house. I barely spoke.
I felt hollowed out, scooped clean.
Every time I tried to keep Tomas on the phone a little longer, he’d say he was in a meeting or the signal was bad.
Now I knew those were just excuses.
He already had a family. A wife. A three-year-old son.
And I was still waiting.
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” I said, my voice flat.
I tried to walk past him toward the bedroom.
Tomas followed me.
“I’m the one who wronged you, but you don’t have to be like this with Alessia.”
“She cares about you. You know she does.”
I stopped and turned to face him.
Cares about me?
Cared enough to sleep with my boyfriend, have his child, and then sit by my side while I waited for a future that was never coming?
Before I could speak, he knelt, pulling supplies from the first-aid kit and beginning to bandage my hand.
His touch was gentle, practiced.
He’d always been like this, tending to even the smallest scrape.
He knew I hated pain, so he’d always glance up, checking my expression before he continued.
But now, his touch just felt cold.
He still knew how to care for my wounds.
But he was no longer the man I knew.
“I never meant to hide it from you,” he said, his voice dropping as he taped the gauze in place. “I just… I never found the right time to tell you.”
“Esme, just wait a little longer.”
“When Leo is older, I’ll divorce her.”
“I’ll give you the wedding I promised.”
I just stared at him.
I understood.
Not now.
Right now, he still had to go home and be Leo’s father, Alessia’s husband.
All he could offer me was another empty promise.
In that moment, for the first time, I felt pathetic.
After my parents died, I had leaned on my friends to stay upright.
When I fell in love with Tomas, I poured every bit of myself into our relationship.
I had lived my life for other people, and now, I didn’t even recognize myself.
This time, I refused to hand my life over to anyone else.
I booked a flight to New Zealand.
It was the place I had always wanted to go.
Tomas had once said we could have our wedding there.
I had waited a long time for that.
I waited until I got sick. I waited until he fell out of love with me.
And that day never came.
This time, I would go alone.
