Between The World's I Lived

Chapter 2: The Loves That Taught Me How to Break

Before Omar, there were others.

Before I learned how to long, I learned how to lose.

I was already in a long-distance relationship with Ethan when I met Omar. On paper, Ethan looked like the answer to my prayers. He was older, stable, and kind in ways that felt unfamiliar after the chaos I had survived. He treated me well, spoiled me, showed up in ways that looked like love.

But my heart never fully arrived.

Ethan was safety, not passion.

He was the place I ran to when I was bleeding, not the place I wanted to stay.

Before him, there was Zane.

Zane was my first love. The one who found me in my final year of school and pursued me with a hunger that made me feel chosen for the first time in my life. I gave him my virginity believing it meant something sacred, something permanent. I didn’t know that three weeks into our bliss, the truth would arrive like a blade.

The phone call came just after the school bell rang.

It was his girlfriend of three years.

I remember standing frozen, unable to understand how a man could build two worlds and live in both without collapsing under the weight of his lies. She marked her territory without mercy. I told myself to walk away.

But he didn’t.

And I didn’t.

We lived in a cycle of longing and betrayal, loving and destroying each other in quiet corners. Months passed like this until I was invited to his brother’s 21st birthday. I dressed as if I were walking into a dream, convincing myself that being seen by his family meant I was finally chosen.

I danced with his father. I laughed with his relatives. I felt, for one shining weekend, that I belonged.

Then he called for his jacket.

Something in my body knew before my mind did. He wouldn’t come inside. He stood at his car, distant, already gone. Hours later, he called again and ended my world in one sentence.

He loved her.

She was pregnant.

They were getting married.

I begged. He went silent.

The man I gave my body and heart to responded with indifference.

And so I did what the girl raised on drama believed was the only ending.

I swallowed every pill I could find.

I didn’t want to die.

I just wanted the pain to stop.

When Ethan appeared after that, he felt like a life raft. He was calm where Zane was chaos. Responsible where Zane was reckless. I played the role of the grateful girlfriend, but inside I was still grieving a ghost.

Then Zane returned, promising change, pulling at my heart all over again. I almost believed him. I almost went back.

And then life closed that door forever.

He became ill.

Paralysed.

Mentally altered beyond recognition.

There would be no reunion. No closure. Only a story that ended without permission.

Soon after, Ethan left the city for a new job. We tried long distance. I told myself this was adulthood. This was stability.

It was during this fragile in-between that Omar walked into my life.

And everything changed.