Chapter 7: The Beautiful Lie.
1306 Words
Chapter 7: The Beautiful Lie.
Weeks bled into months, and the rhythm of Elena’s life became a strange, exhausting dance between two worlds. She and Julian talked as they always did—daily messages, long video calls where the silence felt just as intimate as the words, and the constant exchange of videos from her side. She sent him clips of her walking to her lectures, the way the sunlight hit the library tables, and the small, mundane details of a life he could only watch through a screen.
But while her connection with Julian grew deeper, her reality with Marco was fraying into something unrecognizable.
Marco’s behavior hadn't changed; if anything, it had grown colder. He only called when the sun was down and he wanted her to come over to his house. Once he got what he wanted, the communication died. He wouldn’t call for days, and her texts would sit on "Read" for hours, if he bothered to open them at all. Elena spent half her time wondering if she was even in a relationship anymore, or if she had simply become a convenient stop on Marco’s schedule.
Despite the hurt, she kept every bit of it hidden from Julian.
"How is your boyfriend? How is Marco?" Julian asked during one of their nightly calls. He was leaning against the plain headboard of his bed in the seminary, his expression genuinely curious. He always asked. It was his way of keeping the boundaries clear—reminding himself, and perhaps her, that she belonged to someone else.
"He’s fine, Julian," Elena said, forcing a casual shrug as she adjusted her phone. "Just busy with exams and practice. You know how it is."
The lie tasted like ash. She didn't tell him that Marco had blocked her again the night before after a petty argument about a girl’s comment on his i********:. She didn't tell him that she felt more like a "s*x mate" than a girlfriend. To admit that her relationship was failing felt like admitting she was free, and that was a reality she wasn't ready to face—not when the person waiting on the other side of that freedom was a man who had promised his life to the Church.
"Elena, I don't get you," her roommate, Tasha, complained one afternoon as she watched Elena stare at her silent phone, waiting for a text from Marco that wasn't coming.
Tasha threw her bag onto her desk and turned to face her. "Marco only shows up when he wants you, and the second he's gotten what he wants, he leaves. Why do you keep doing this to yourself? Let go of that guy. He doesn't deserve you, El. He blocks you every time you two have a fight and you always find a way to forgive him when he cheats. It's exhausting just watching you."
Elena didn't look up. She couldn't. Tasha was holding up a mirror she wasn't ready to look into.
"It's not that simple," Elena whispered, her thumb hovering over the camera icon to record a new video for Julian.
"It is that simple," Tasha countered. "You’re holding onto a ghost while pretending everything is perfect. One of these days, the lie is going to get too heavy to carry."
Elena ignored her and hit record. She forced a smile for the camera, the kind of smile she only gave Julian, hiding the tears that were threatening to spill over because of Marco. She was trapped in the middle—loyal to a man who didn't want her, and haunting a man she wasn't allowed to have.
Months passed, and the weight of Marco’s indifference finally broke something inside Elena. The silence from his end would last for days, and in a moment of reckless loneliness, she turned to the only other person who knew her past—her ex-boyfriend, Derrick.
It wasn't love; it was a distraction, a way to feel seen when she felt invisible. Afterward, she sat on her bed and typed a long, unfiltered message to Tasha, confessing everything about the night she spent with Derrick and the confusion she felt.
But the cycle with Marco was a hard habit to break. Just when she thought she was moving on, he would call. He wouldn't just text "come over"; he would talk to her for a long time, asking how her day was and telling her how much he missed her. He made her feel like she was the only girl in his world during those conversations.
"I really miss you, El," he would murmur over the phone. "Why don't you come over? I just want you here."
Despite the guilt of what had happened with Derrick, Elena found it impossible to say no when he was being so sweet. She went to his house, falling back into the familiar, painful routine. This time, he let her stay. For two days, she lived in the bubble of his apartment, convinced by his words that they were finally getting back on track.
On the third day, however, the bubble burst. Marco picked up her phone while she was in the other room. He didn't have to look far before he saw the chat with Tasha—the explicit confession about Derrick.
"Get out," Marco said, his voice dropping the sweetness and turning into ice. He threw the phone onto the bed. "Leave my house, Elena. Now."
Elena crumbled. She dropped to her knees, begging, sobbing, and apologizing until her throat was raw. She was deeply sorry, terrified that her one mistake had ruined the "change" she thought she saw in him. But his face remained a mask of stone.
She returned to her dorm room with her heart in pieces. She cried until her eyes were so swollen she could barely see. In a daze of self-loathing, she made a video of herself—a CapCut edit with a melancholic song—and posted it to her w******p status. Almost immediately, replies flooded in. Friends and classmates noticed her tear-stained face and asked what was wrong, but she was too tired of explaining to respond.
Later that night, her phone rang. It was an audio call from Julian.
"Hey, El," he said. They spoke for a long time, Julian cracking jokes and sharing stories from the seminary to cheer her up. But even over the phone, he could sense the shift. "Elena... your voice. You’ve been crying, haven't you? What’s wrong?"
"Marco and I... we broke up," she whispered.
She told him it was over, but she kept the ugly parts hidden. She didn't mention Derrick, and she didn't mention the way Marco used his words to pull her back in. Julian stayed on the line, his voice soft as he consoled her and cheered her up. When the call finally ended, the guilt came rushing back.
I shouldn't have slept with Derrick, she thought. I shouldn't have... I really love Marco, and I feel like I'm losing him.
"Girl, stop crying," Tasha said from the other side of the room. "Moreover, he was also cheating on you. He had other girls too, he just wasn't caught. You were just unlucky."
"He changed, Tasha," Elena defended him immediately. "Marco has changed. He doesn't follow other women anymore. He really missed me."
Tasha looked at her and wagged her head slowly. "That guy is exploiting your naivety, Elena. He doesn't love you. Honestly, i think i won't say anything concerning this issue again."
Tasha pulled her covers over her head and went to sleep, leaving Elena alone in the dark with the crushing weight of her regret.
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