It's Only You

CHAPTER TWO: The Promise

I sat quietly in my room, the silence thick enough to scream. Everything felt still, empty, and suffocating. My eyes burned from crying. The tears had stopped, but the ache in my chest hadn’t. It was as if my heart had turned brittle, cracked in places that no amount of time could fully mend.

Kevin. Anna. Linda. Their names looped in my mind like a cruel echo. The three people I had trusted most….the people who had once been at the centre of my laughter, my secrets, and my life. How quickly that trust had shattered. One moment, everything was perfect, and then next, it crumbled right in front of me, taking pieces of me with it.

I stared at the wall, unseeing, replaying the image of them together. Their faces, their words, the lies I hadn’t been quick enough to recognize. Every second of that memory carved itself a little deeper into me, leaving wounds that didn’t bleed but hurt just the same.

A soft knock broke through the silence, gentle enough that for a second, I almost pretended not to hear it. Then the door creaked open.

“Amara,” Mom’s voice came, quiet but edged with worry.

She stepped inside carefully, as if afraid one wrong move might shatter me completely. Her hair was tied back in a loose bun, her presence calm in the chaos of my mind. She crossed the room, her eyes searching my face.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? What happened?”

That simple question broke the fragile dam I’d tried so hard to hold together. The moment she spoke, my chest tightened, and the tears I thought had dried rushed back, unstoppable. I covered my face with my hands, but the sobs came anyway loud, painful, and terrible in their honesty.

“I saw them, Mom,” I managed between breaths. “Kevin… Anna… and Linda. Together. They__” My voice crumbled before I could finish.

Without a word, Mom sat beside me on the bed, close enough that her warmth reached through the cold I felt inside. She took my trembling hand in hers, her thumb brushing over my knuckles in small, comforting circles.

“Don’t cry, my love,” she whispered, her voice soft but sure. “They are not worth your tears. You’re stronger than this, Amara. So much stronger than you think. He doesn’t deserve you.”

Her words settled in me like a slow balm, steadying the tremor in my chest. For a while, I couldn’t speak. I just cried, my head resting lightly against her shoulder as she held me.

When my sobs finally began to fade, she tilted my chin up, her eyes meeting mine. There was no pity there, only a fierce kind of certainty.

“You deserve peace,” she said firmly. “And love. The real kind. The kind that doesn’t make you doubt yourself. You deserve a fresh start, Amara. Don’t let anyone make you forget that.”

Her words pierced through the fog, sinking deep. I wanted to believe them, to hold on to the idea that maybe this pain wasn’t the end of me, but the beginning of something better.

I lowered my gaze, staring at my hands, still trembling in my lap. A part of me still ached for Kevin, for what we had, or what I had thought we had. But maybe Mom was right. Maybe walking away wasn’t giving up, but choosing myself.

I didn’t answer her aloud. Instead, I leaned into her embrace, closing my eyes. The tears had stopped, the silence returning, but this time, it felt different. Calmer.

Somewhere deep inside the ache, a quiet strength was stirring again. I wasn’t healed, not yet. But as I sat there in my mother’s arms, I realized healing had already begun.