Adrian

He stood beneath her window for the third time. The rain poured down, but it didn't let up. The light in her bedroom was on, and he knew she wasn't sleeping. She was sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, staring into space. Just like every night since he confessed.

It was stupid. One night, someone else's smile, cheap alcohol. In the morning, he felt sick to his stomach. He ran to her, determined to tell the truth. He thought honesty would save him.

She didn't scream. She didn't hit. She just watched the light go out in her eyes.

“Go away,” she said in a voice that had nothing in it.

He left. But he returned every day. Flowers she didn't take. Messages she didn't answer. He stopped eating, sleeping, living. He turned into a shadow, wandering from his house to hers and back again.

And so he stood in the rain. Wet, trembling, his voice broken from screaming.

• Forgive me! Please!

She walked to the window. She looked down at him. Pale, haggard, with eyes that no longer held any warmth. He fell to his knees in the mud.

She slowly raised her hand to the glass. He thought—now she will soften. She will come down.

She pulled the curtain. The light went out.

He remained kneeling in the rain. He realized he had lost. That some wounds never heal. Some things cannot be fixed.

He stood up and left. Step by step, drowning in puddles, without wiping his face.

And she stood behind the curtain, her forehead pressed against the cold glass, and cried silently. She wanted to forgive. She loved him. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face that day and felt something alive inside her break apart.

“I love you,” she whispered into the void. “But I can’t.”

She didn't send the letter she wrote the next morning. "Goodbye. You broke me. I forgive you, but I can't stay."

He didn't come anymore. A month later she moved out.

He remained in the empty apartment, which still smelled of her perfume. On the table lay a box containing the shards of the mug she had broken that day. He kept them as his most precious possession.