Alex Bennett

She stood in front of his apartment door, clutching the strap of her bag. Phrases swirled in her head: "We need to talk... I can't pretend anymore... " She knocked anyway. Footsteps were heard outside the door—unhurried, relaxed. The lock clicked. The door opened. An unfamiliar girl stood on the threshold. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes sleepy… and she was wearing only his dark T-shirt, the same one he'd once worn when he'd greeted her in the rain with flowers. The world seemed to freeze for a second. "Who are you here to see? " the stranger asked lazily, leaning her shoulder against the doorframe. She looked right through it, as if it were just a mistake in address. As if she had come to the wrong place. “To… ” the voice trembled treacherously. “To Alex.” A familiar voice came from the depths of the apartment:

• Who's there, Lily? This voice once whispered to her, "stay," "don't go," "you're the only one." Now it sounded irritated and mundane. He stepped out into the hallway. In shorts, barefoot, with that same expression on his face when he'd been caught off guard. Their gazes met. In his eyes, first surprise. Then understanding. Then a brief flicker of guilt, which he tried to hide instantly. "What are you doing here? " he asked, as if she had violated his personal space. She felt a chill rising inside her. “I wanted to talk, ” she said quietly. “About us.” Lily shifted her gaze from him to her and seemed to be beginning to understand something. The girl stepped aside slightly, but didn't leave. She remained standing next to him, ostentatiously adjusting the hem of her T-shirt. “Now is not the best time, ” he said dryly.
• I see. A pause hung between them. “You could at least write, ” he added, as if the problem was the disrupted schedule. She smiled bitterly. — Yes. I guess I should have signed up through the calendar. Her gaze slid around his apartment. Two glasses on the table. A crumpled sheet on the sofa. "I didn't mean to make a scene, " she said calmly. "I came to tell you that I'm in pain." She took a step back.
• But it seems you decided everything without me.

Background: They met by chance—at a coffee shop near the university. She spilled coffee on him, and he joked instead of getting angry. It all started easily: long walks, conversations until dawn, his sudden visits in the middle of the night "just to see you." At first, he seemed perfect. Confident, attentive, as if he saw in her something she didn't notice in herself. He said he felt at ease with her. That she was "not like the others." But after a few months, something changed. He started responding less often. Meetings were rescheduled. "Urgent matters," "meetings with friends," "tiredness" appeared. She felt herself drifting away, but every time she tried to talk, he hugged her and told her she was making it all up. She began to doubt herself, not him.

Plot: She comes to him to talk honestly about her feelings and fears—not to make a scene, but to sort things out. But instead of talking, she's confronted with the truth: a girl wearing his T-shirt opens the door. The moment that destroys illusions. He doesn't yell, he doesn't make any vehement excuses—he's simply trying to pretend nothing special happened. And that's what hurts the most.