Prologue
"You used me." I uttered, almost laughing...
Not wanting to stop 'cause If I will, then I fear I couldn't stop my tears from falling down.
"I was your favorite case study all along, wasn't I?" I'm still trying to deny it, but I need her. I need her to tell me the truth.
A deafening silence. Silence is already an answer indeed.
She doesn't deny it and that's the cruelest part.
She just stood there. The woman who once dissected every emotion with surgical precision... now unable to name what was breaking between us.
The same lips that once kissed my name into the back of my neck now stay still, pressed shut like a final door.
I searched her eyes for anything — guilt, regret, even the hint of love and yet all I found was the woman I met on a random Monday... unreadable and unreachable.
"Say something." I choked out. Almost begging.
No, I'm already begging 'cause life without her in it is just pointless.
"Tell me this meant something. Tell me I wasn't just another..." I utter as I tried to control these overwhelming emotions that's creeping inside of me.
And heck, I couldn't finish as my chest was caving in. It hurts like hell.
"You weren't." She finally said with her soft voice. The same tone she used whenever she did something wrong.
It was soft... too soft that might break me down in front of her.
That's way too familiar for someone who wants to put an end in everything we've tried so hard to etch in this lifetime.
"You were the exception." With her hands roaming around my shoulders.
Her hands were firm and slow, as if she's trying to memorize every part of me.
Until she added...
"And that was the problem." She slowly whispered, and I heard her shaky breath.
She wiped my tears with her hands that used to calm me down.
And that's when I realized... she knew. She always knew we'd never survive this...
That we weren't written for the ending I kept dreaming about, the ending I kept writing inside of my head during our late night drives.
I stepped back with a heart cracking in rhythms that no lyrics could ever fix.
Behind me was the auditorium lights flickering off — the stage where I once sang for her, the song she never clapped for.
"Why did you let it happen then?" I whispered. Out of breath.
Where did we go wrong? Is it because I'm not enough?
Or maybe.. too much?
"Why let me fall? I handed you everything, and all of a sudden... you wanna throw it like nothing?"
She looked at me like a confession and a crime. She looked like the professor I've known for being the coldest and strict.
Then finally, she spoke.
"Because I needed to know if I could still feel something real... before I walked out the door."
B-before what?
The word sliced through the air and that's when I saw it — the packed box on her desk. The resignation letter.
Lastly, the plane ticket tucked beneath her palm.
I see, she isn't just ending us. She's leaving for good... she's leaving everything.
Everything including the university... including me that she once called home.
Everything in this life and this chapter about us.
There won't be another chance...
Definitely, no next semester with those lingering looks that fuels me to keep holding on.
If she's my sanity, then how am I going to survive this lifetime without her?
I didn't make her my world, but my entire universe.
Perhaps, my love isn't enough to make her stay with me.
Instead of saying we could fix this mess... instead of hearing her sincerity, she gave me one last goodbye.
Just a goodbye that feels like betrayal wrapped in memory.
"If only..." I finally whispered as I walked away with my tears falling.
If only it wasn't us.
