Chapter 5
941 Words
The problem with pretending is that eventually your body rebels.
Mine does it quietly at first, sleepless nights, a tight jaw, a constant ache behind my eyes. Then louder: missed calls, delayed replies, a growing impatience with conversations that once felt effortless.
I am cracking.
Adrian notices before anyone else does.
We’re sitting in his apartment, the kind of place that looks staged even when no one is watching. Everything has its place. Nothing is excessive. It smells faintly of clean linen and restraint.
“You flinch when your phone lights up,” he says.
I look at him sharply. “What?”
He sets his glass down. “You do. Like you’re bracing for something.”
I force a laugh. “You’re imagining things.”
“I’m not,” he says gently. “I know you.”
That sentence used to comfort me.
Now it terrifies me.
“I don’t want to interrogate you,” he continues. “But I need to understand what’s happening. You feel… elsewhere.”
The room feels suddenly too small.
“I’m just overwhelmed,” I say. “The wedding, my parents, everything.”
He nods, absorbing that. “Then we slow down.”
I blink. “Slow down?”
“Yes.” He reaches for my hand. “If this is too much, we pause. I don’t want a wife who feels cornered.”
Something twists painfully in my chest.
“You’d do that?” I ask.
“Of course,” he replies, surprised. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Because not everyone loves like you do, I think.
Because some people love like fire, not shelter.
I squeeze his hand, guilt flooding me. “You’re good to me.”
“I want to be more than good,” he says. “I want to be chosen.”
The word hangs between us.
Chosen.
That night, when I leave his apartment, I cry in my car, not because he hurt me, but because he didn’t.
Julian doesn’t wait.
He never has.
He shows up outside my office two days later, leaning against his car like the world doesn’t intimidate him. When I see him, my heart stutters, not with fear, but with recognition.
“You can’t just appear like this,” I hiss, pulling him aside.
“Why?” he asks calmly. “Because someone might see?”
“Yes.”
“And what then?” he presses. “You’ll keep pretending nothing’s happening?”
I look around, my pulse racing. “This isn’t fair.”
“Neither is living half a life,” he says.
We sit in the car, windows cracked, tension thick as humidity.
“I can’t be your secret anymore,” he says finally. “It’s erasing me. And it’s erasing you.”
I stare at the dashboard. “I didn’t ask you to wait.”
“No,” he agrees. “But I hoped you’d choose.”
There it is again.
Choose.
“I’m trying to do the right thing,” I whisper.
“For who?” he asks. “Your parents? Your reputation? Or yourself?”
I don’t answer.
Julian exhales, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t need you to pick me today. But I need honesty. If you’re going to marry him, tell me now.”
My throat tightens. “I don’t know.”
“That,” he says softly, “is an answer.”
He opens the door and steps out, leaving me alone with the echo of everything I’m afraid to admit.
The fallout comes faster than I expect.
My mother invites me to tea the next afternoon, her tone deceptively casual. The china is delicate. The pastries untouched.
“Julian Moretti,” she says lightly. “You’ve been spending time with him.”
I freeze.
“He’s… a friend,” I reply.
She tilts her head. “Lila, I didn’t raise you to be careless.”
“I’m not being careless.”
“You’re being visible,” she says sharply. “And visibility invites interpretation.”
I clench my hands in my lap. “I’m allowed to have friends.”
“Not ones who complicate your future.”
“My future,” I repeat quietly.
“Yes,” she says. “Because whether you like it or not, your choices ripple. You don’t marry in isolation.”
Something inside me hardens.
“I’m not an extension of the family brand,” I say.
Her eyes flash. “You benefit from it.”
“I also suffocate under it.”
Silence slams down between us.
She sets her cup down carefully. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Maybe,” I reply. “But it should be mine.”
That night, I don’t go home.
I walk. For hours. Through streets that don’t know my name or care about my future. For the first time in weeks, I feel anonymous, and strangely light.
I realize something then, standing under a streetlight that flickers uncertainly:
I have been treating marriage like a rescue.
Adrian would save me from uncertainty. Julian would save me from numbness.
But no one is supposed to save me.
That’s the truth I’ve been circling without courage.
I pull out my phone and type a message to Adrian.
We need to talk. Really talk.
Then one to Julian.
I owe you honesty. Meet me tomorrow.
My hands shake, but this time, it isn’t fear.
It’s resolve.
For the first time, I am not waiting for someone else to decide the shape of my life.
I am stepping into it myself.
And whatever fractures come next, I will face them awake.
- Writer
