CHAPTER XLIX
"Not Every Storm Is Mine to Carry"
The silence between us had stretched too long. Too heavy. And like every silence that carries unsaid truths, it finally cracked.
I couldn't hold it in any longer.
My voice, sharp and shaking, broke through the weight in my chest as I turned toward Mon, no longer able to hide behind indifference.
> "Mon, it's not always me who's wrong!" I said, my voice louder than I intended.
"You can't just keep painting yourself as the good one and make me look like the villain in every story. That's not fair."
Mon flinched slightly — not because of the volume of my words, but because they came from me. From someone who had always swallowed the pain, buried the doubts, and walked away instead of arguing.
Her voice trembled when she replied, eyes burning not with rage — but with hurt.
> "And if I don't show you my anger, Sam… who am I supposed to show it to?"
"If I don't share my pain with you… my happiness, my fears — then who should I share it with?"
"You were that person, Sam. You were my person."
Each word felt like a blow. Like she was peeling back the version of us that had become distorted.
But it wasn't anger she was throwing at me.
It was grief.
She looked at me again, longer this time — her eyes scanning my face like she was searching for the Sam she used to know. And then she whispered, as if the truth itself was too painful to say out loud:
> "But the way you look at me now…"
"It's not anger. It's not even indifference. It's disgust."
That word.
Disgust.
It hung in the air between us like a knife I didn't mean to wield — but had somehow already stabbed her with.
I opened my mouth to respond, to say something, anything, that could take it back. But the truth was… I didn't even know what my expression had been.
Was I disgusted?
No.
Not with her.
Maybe with myself.
Maybe with the mess we had made of something that once felt like magic.
But how do you explain that to someone who's already bleeding?
I stepped back, stunned by the way her voice cracked. She wasn't trying to win. She wasn't trying to prove me wrong. She was just… hurt. And tired. And lost — just like me.
We stood there, both trying to breathe through the storm that now lived between us.
A storm made not of betrayal or lies…
But of everything we left unsaid for too long.
> And in that moment, I realized — sometimes, the pain we cause the people we love isn't because we stop loving them…
It's because we stop showing it.
And by the time we realize the damage?
It's already done.
"The Last Confession"
Something inside me snapped — a storm of jealousy, confusion, and heartbreak that I could no longer contain.
I stepped forward, grabbed Mon by the waist, and pulled her close — not gently, not lovingly… but with frustration burning in my veins. My grip was tight, desperate. My eyes searched hers like they could pull the truth straight from her soul.
Mon winced slightly from the force, whispering in a pained voice,
> "Sam… you're hurting me."
But I didn't stop.
I was too far gone.
Too full of every ache I had swallowed for weeks, every unanswered question that had haunted me every sleepless night.
> "Tell me who Ashwin is," I demanded, my voice low, trembling with restrained anger. "What is he to you, Mon? He's not your boyfriend, right?"
"There's… nothing physical between you two, is there? Nothing intimate?"
My breath was ragged. My heart, thundering.
And for once, I didn't care how vulnerable I looked — how broken my voice sounded.
I just needed her to say it.
I just needed her to choose me.
But then — she looked at me.
Tears in her eyes. Not those soft, cinematic ones… but the kind that came from being shattered from the inside out.
> "Sam…" she said, her voice cracking like dry glass,
"Everything you thought… everything you feared… it's true."
The world stilled.
I forgot how to breathe.
> "I'm in love with someone else," she continued, barely able to get the words out.
"Yes… Ashwin and I are in a relationship. Yes… we've shared things. We're together."
The words were knives.
Clean. Precise.
And she didn't sugarcoat a single one of them.
But worst of all… she was crying while saying it.
And I?
I felt… nothing.
No pity.
No empathy.
Just rage. And a strange kind of emptiness that somehow hurt even more.
I took a shaky step back, stunned into silence, but still holding onto the last thread of anger that hadn't snapped.
> "Say it louder," I hissed, "Just keep proving me right. Just keep twisting the knife, Mon."
But she didn't step back.
She grabbed me.
Fisted her fingers into my collar, pulled me toward her so fast it felt like I'd lost the floor beneath my feet.
Her eyes blazed — with anger, with grief, with everything we had once been.
> "I told you once in anger," she whispered fiercely,
"But today, I'll say it from pain—real pain:
Never show me your face again, Sam."
"Never say you loved me. Don't you dare."
Tears were streaming down her cheeks now, but she didn't wipe them.
She didn't flinch.
She stood there like a storm in full bloom, and all I could do was weather it.
And then… I did the only thing I could think of.
I looked her dead in the eye and said:
> "This is your chance, Mon. The opportunity you've been waiting for."
"Go. Walk away from me. Don't look back. Just go."
There was silence.
We both stared at each other like we were standing on the edge of something too massive to cross.
And then, in one heart-wrenching second…
She cupped my face.
Her touch was soft. Too soft for someone who had just shattered me.
And before I could move…
She kissed me.
A single, raw, emotional kiss — not romantic, not lustful — but final.
The kind of kiss you give someone before you say goodbye forever.
She pulled back, her voice barely a whisper now. One last thread of truth hanging between us.
> "Sam," she said,
"I don't like girls. I like boys. I always have."
"And after today… I won't ever come back into your life."
And just like that…
She turned.
She walked away.
And with every step she took, it felt like a part of me died behind her.
There were no more fights.
No more justifications.
No more hope.
Only the sound of footsteps — hers, leaving… and mine, refusing to follow.
Because sometimes…
> Love doesn't end in betrayal.
It ends in truth.
And truth?
Is the most painful goodbye of all.
To be continue....