Too Late To Love Her

Chapter Eight: When Silence Screams

Chapter Eight: When Silence Screams

Amara’s POV

He stood there. Still. Drenched. Silent.

Like a statue carved from guilt and rain.

I didn’t move from the balcony. My hands clenched the cold metal railing so tight my knuckles turned pale. My heart thundered against my ribs, angry at itself for still reacting to him.

What was I supposed to do?

Run to him like all those movie scenes where the heroine gives in to love?

Or walk away, like the version of me I was trying to become?

I stepped back.

He took a step forward, but I raised my hand to stop him from coming closer.

I shook my head.

And then—I walked back inside.

I didn’t slam the glass door.

I didn’t cry.

I just… closed the curtains.

I heard him call my name once. Softly.

But I didn’t open them again.

I sat on the couch, hands trembling, every part of me screaming.

Why now, Jide?

Why show up soaked and sad now, after all the nights I begged you to look at me?

After all the times I cried myself to sleep while you texted her in the same room?

You’re too late.

Even if my heart hasn’t figured that out yet.

Jide’s POV

She saw me.

I know she did.

She was right there, framed in golden light, the wind tugging gently at her hair, her eyes wide and stunned.

I had rehearsed this moment for days.

How I would say her name.

How I’d kneel, beg, apologize for every single time I failed her.

But none of that happened.

I stood there like a fool, rain dripping off my lashes, my voice caught in my throat.

She closed the curtains.

And that hurt more than anything she could’ve said.

Narrator

Grief is loud when it’s fresh.

But heartbreak? It’s a quiet thing.

It eats you slowly. Through unanswered texts, through memories that won’t fade, through the sound of someone’s name on someone else’s lips.

And Jide was just beginning to understand what it meant to be truly alone.

Deji’s POV

He saw him.

From the car.

Jide. Standing across from the boutique apartment like a man who had lost his way.

And maybe he had.

Deji didn’t hate Jide. He used to admire him.

Until he broke the woman Deji had grown to… love?

He didn’t dare speak that word aloud.

But it sat heavy in his chest like truth always does.

He considered stepping out. Confronting him. Telling him to stay away.

But that wasn’t his place.

Not yet.

He had promised Amara patience. And if she needed space to find her own answers, he’d give her that.

Even if it meant watching her cry over a man who never deserved her.

Amara’s POV

I didn’t sleep.

I made tea I didn’t drink. I paced the kitchen. I even checked my phone once, hoping he hadn’t texted, praying he had.

He didn’t.

At 3 a.m., I sat on the floor of my bedroom, wrapped in a shawl, and let myself finally sob.

Not because I missed him.

But because healing isn’t a straight line.

It’s circular. Messy. It makes you second-guess your strength, your decisions, your dignity.

I wasn’t weak for missing him.

I was human.

And tomorrow, I would be strong again.

But tonight?

Tonight I allowed myself to break.

Jide’s POV

The next morning, I went back.

Not to stand outside. But to knock on her door.

I had bought new clothes. Cleaned up. Wrote down everything I wanted to say.

But when I stood in front of her door, I froze.

What if she opened it and looked through me?

What if she didn’t open it at all?

I raised my hand to knock… and the door opened before I touched it.

Amara stood there.

No makeup. Eyes red. Wrapped in a robe.

She looked… real.

Raw.

Beautiful.

And so heartbreakingly distant.

She didn’t speak. Just stared.

“Hi,” I whispered.

She nodded. Said nothing.

“I know I don’t deserve a second of your time,” I began, “but I need to say something.”

She opened the door wider. Not as an invitation, but as a challenge.

I stepped inside.

The silence between us was louder than anything I had prepared to say.

Narrator

This wasn’t a love story anymore.

It was a reckoning.

Between a man who finally saw what he destroyed.

And a woman deciding if healing meant walking away for good—or looking pain in the eye and demanding it make her stronger.

Tasha’s POV

She watched them from her car.

Far enough to not be seen. Close enough to burn with jealousy.

She had followed Jide. She had seen him buy flowers. She knew what he was planning.

And she hated how easy it was for him to run back to Amara.

Like she hadn’t been the one by his side when his world fell apart.

But Tasha was patient.

She had a plan.

And it wasn’t over.

Not yet.

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