Chapter 7: Continuation
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He kept shielding her with his body. It was hilarious, really. I felt like a corpse that had suddenly been dug up from the grave just to feel the agony of dying all over again.
I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart, forcing my expression into a cold, hollow mask as I faced them.
"Get your things right now while I'm still being nice, and get the hell out of my apartment!" I barked through gritted teeth.
Vin faced me again, his mouth opening as if he were ready to hurl a barrage of excuses, but Furanshin quickly held him back to keep him from approaching me.
"Get out before I change my mind and throw both of you in jail, such a pity I am! I'm so unlovable, so just leave if you really don't love me anymore! Don't go cheating on me on top of that!" I said coldly, pointing up at the security cameras installed in the corner of the apartment.
The cameras were directly connected to the laptop in my office at the company. I had never once checked the CCTV footage before because I had trusted him blindly.
Not until today.
Vin was about to argue when Furanshin suddenly groaned in pain, clutching her stomach.
"Vin... it hurts! Our baby!"
Panic writing itself all over his face, Vin scooped Furanshin up in his arms and shoved past me, his shoulder slamming hard into mine. I didn't even care about the physical impact as they hurried out. My mind was completely paralyzed, her final words replaying like a broken record in my head.
A baby? They're having a baby?
"Ha... ha..." A delirious, broken laugh escaped my lips, echoing in the empty room until it dissolved into heavy, breathless sobs.
She was pregnant, and my boyfriend was the father. How sweet.
‘I really love Vin, I love him so, so much, but what about me? What about me if I keep choosing him over and over again? This isn't right anymore, it's exhausting and so tiring. Let's just end whatever we have between us so we don't hurt each other anymore. After seven years... and his two years of courting me, why would he choose to betray me now? What's the use of asking anyways when it has already happened.’
From the morning they left until late into the night, I hadn't moved an inch. I remained slumped on the bedroom floor, leaning against the wall, staring blankly into space. I had completely lost track of time, of what I was supposed to do, of how to breathe.
My phone suddenly buzzed inside my purse, breaking the silence.
Lifelessly, I fished it out.
It was Sutehan.
I quickly declined the call. When it started ringing again, I turned the phone off completely. I didn't want to talk to anyone. Not now. I didn't want him to see me like this and think that I was always crying.
When the room grew completely dark, signaling that it was already late into the night, I finally forced my aching body up from the floor to clear out what needed to be erased. I stripped the bedsheets and all the pillowcases, marching outside to throw them straight into the apartment's trash chute. I never wanted to look at those sheets again and be reminded of how foul they were.
Once I had replaced the bedding, I dragged out a massive plastic storage bin. I packed every single one of Vin's belongings into it. I didn't leave a single thing behind. When I was done packing his life away, I hauled the heavy bin out and left it right outside the apartment door. Then, I changed the passcode to the door locks so he could never set foot inside again.
I checked the wall clock and was surprised to see it was already 11:00 PM. I had been so consumed by the purging that I had completely forgotten to eat lunch and dinner. I looked around the apartment. The space instantly felt brighter, yet emptier, now that everything Vin had contributed was gone. I was returning it all to him. He could take it to the home they would build together—the girl he insisted was
"just a friend," yet he went ahead and knocked her up. He had always insisted on using protection with me, yet he had ridden her completely unprotected. He never actually envisioned me in his future.
A hollow, self-deprecating laugh escaped me as hot water cascaded down my body. I was standing in the shower.
A man like him isn't worth crying over, my mind whispered, trying to reason with me. But I couldn't help it. Just like that, my bitter laughter turned back into heavy tears, blending seamlessly with the rushing water from the showerhead.
How could I not cry over him? He was my first in everything, and I had genuinely loved him. Just because I had grown emotionally distant over the past few months didn't mean I had stopped loving him. I had just wanted him to understand and feel that I was human too, that I got hurt.
Our tragedy felt more agonizing than any heartbreaking movie or those dramatic short videos trending online.
‘Is this really how it is when you love someone? It's either you're the one who cheats or you're the one who gets cheated on.’
‘Who the hell is the author of my story? Why does it feel like I'm the only one getting hurt here?’
- Writer
