Chapter 2
1011 Words
The Night She Broke
The sky over Seoul darkened long before the sun had fully set, as if the world itself had lowered its gaze in sympathy, feeling the weight Mira carried home in absolute silence. She didn’t remember how she drove home. Her hands had been on the wheel. Her eyes had been pointed forward. But her mind…
Her mind was still in that office, still staring at the tablet he forgot to lock, still drowning in the words he had written for another woman. Words he had promised belonged only to her. Her heart didn’t ache. Not yet. It was too stunned. Too frozen. Too numb to understand the depth of its own wound. It was the numbness that comes right before a storm — the kind that doesn’t roar, but swallows everything whole.
When Mira pushed open the penthouse door, everything looked painfully ordinary. The soft amber lights he always said made the home “cozy.” The scent of the vanilla candle she lit every evening for him, which he loved. The framed honeymoon photo where they both smiled like they believed forever was real. Nothing had changed.
Except everything had.
She set her bag down with trembling fingers. The floor seemed unsteady beneath her feet, as if the marble itself wanted to cave under the truth she carried. Her legs barely carried her down the hallway. To the bedroom. To the bed they once shared dreams in. She sank onto the floor beside it, her spine hitting the bedframe with a soft thud. And then the numbness dissolved— slowly, painfully, mercilessly.
Her tears fell like raindrops on glass. Quiet. Inconsolable. Uncontrolled.
No wailing.
No hysterics.
Just a silent breaking.
As if her heart was mourning the version of herself that once believed in him.
She lifted a trembling hand to her chest. It felt too tight... like she couldn't breathe. Like all the air is being suck out of her. It wasn’t just heartbreak. No... It was betrayal. Humiliation. A kind of devastation that rewrites a person from the inside out.
She had given him everything — her love, her trust, her devotion, her future, her career… and he had handed those pieces of her to someone else.
Her breathing grew shallow. Her fingers curled into her sweater, gripping it as if she might fall apart if she let go. Like it's the only thing anchoring her to life.
“Why…?”
The word left her lips like a dying ember.
Why wasn’t she enough? Why was her love so easy to betray? Did she made him think she was so easy to fool? Did she made him think her love was cheap? Why did he hold her at night with the same arms he wrapped around someone else?
A shiver ran through her as memories flashed — their wedding vows… the warmth in his eyes… the tears... the gentle smile... his trembling voice when he promised her forever. A lie spoken beautifully is still a lie. Minutes bled into hours. She didn’t notice when the lights outside dimmed, or when the city sounds softened into a distant hum. The room grew darker, shadows stretching across the floor like quiet ghosts of what she had lost.
When the penthouse door opened, she didn’t flinch, she didn't move. She knew the rhythm of his footsteps. She knew the sound of his breath. She knew the lie of his concern before he even spoke.
“Mira?”
His voice reached her, soft and practiced. “Why are you crying? Are you hurt? What happened?”
She raised her head slowly. Her eyes were empty — a calm ocean with a storm forming beneath. She said nothing.
He knelt beside her, and the act was almost insulting in its familiarity.
“Mira… look at me. What happened?”
"You're scaring me... Talk to me honey..."
His hand moved toward her shoulder.
She flinched. Barely. Almost unnoticeable. But to him, it was like touching fire. Still, he tried to pull her into his arms.
And she let him — but only because her body was too tired to resist. She didn’t return the embrace. Didn’t lean into him. Didn’t even blink.
Her arms stayed limp at her sides. Like a broken doll.
She was cold.
Silent.
As if the version of Mira he knew had already left her body.
As if her very soul was gone.
He stroked her hair gently, pretending to be the loving husband the world believed he was. “Mira… I’m here,” he murmured.
"Don't go quiet on me. Talk to me honey, I'm here for you."
“Whatever it is, we’ll get through it. Together.”
Together. The word struck her like a blade. A lie so easily spoken. Like everything he said is from the depth of his heart. How could she have trusted his scheming tongue? How could she have kissed those lips that dripped with sweet poison? Her gaze drifted past him — unfocused, distant, resigned.
Inside her, something shifted. A soundless, invisible fracture. A quiet breaking that made room for something else— something fiercer. Through that fracture, a spark rose. Then a burn. Then a fire she didn’t know she still had. A fire betrayal couldn’t kill.
A fire the truth couldn’t extinguish. A determination. A promise. If the lies broke her, then the truth would rebuild her. Piece by piece. Layer by layer. Into someone stronger. Clearer. Unrecognizable.
And the woman rising from these ashes? She would not be soft. She would not be fooled. She would not be bullied. She would not be the Mira he married. She would be the Mira he should have feared. Stronger...determined. The Mira he would regret losing for the rest of his life. And this time… she would rise for herself. She would rebuild herself. Not for him. Never again for him.
She would rise from this ghost of her life. For herself. For the Mira that she was supposed to be. The woman that she was meant to become.
- Writer
