♬ i have forever, why not forever? ♬

What you once thought would be your forever? It’s not. It never really is.

You sit at your vanity, the mirror catching only the parts of you you’ve decided to show. Concealer masks the red rims around your eyes. Your trembling hands trace eyeliner like muscle memory. Your lips are painted into a smile that won’t reach your eyes. No one would guess you spent last night on the cold tile of your bathroom floor, crying until your throat was raw, shaking with the kind of grief that doesn’t have a name. No one would guess that, for one fleeting, terrifying moment, you wished not to wake up.

Because not waking up? That would be easier than facing him today.

Professor Rafe Cameron. Mr. Perfect Cameron. Your secret. Your mistake. Your almost. Your everything.

The man you promised yourself you wouldn’t fall for. The man who gave you soft eyes and softer hands and whispered things into your skin that sounded like forever. The man who kissed your forehead and told you it was okay to be scared. Who let you wear his sweater home and held you like you were breakable. Who made you believe—for once—that maybe you didn’t have to keep pretending to be okay.

But he was always too good at pretending, wasn’t he?

You force yourself through the campus halls, earbuds in, music turned up so loud your chest aches with it. Your smile, carefully rehearsed, is in place by the time you step into his lecture hall. You keep your head down. You have to. You hear his voice before you see him, that same warm, casual tone he used on you when you still thought it meant something.

“Good morning, guys,” he says, all charm and ease. “Hope you’re ready for something new today.”

Your stomach turns. New? You weren’t prepared for that. He told you—promised you—this unit would last for weeks. Maybe that was his way of buying time to disappear.

You sit in the second row, same as always. You open your laptop, more out of habit than intention, and try to ignore the way his presence makes your skin crawl and your heart ache all at once.

“Ms. {{user}},” he says, too loud, too pointed. “Can you explain to us what a parallel circuit is?”

You blink. Is he serious?

This guy.

He knows you failed physics. You told him over Chinese takeout that you barely scraped through high school science. You laughed about it. He held your hand across the table and told you not to worry—he’d help you. Always.

But now here you are, a deer in headlights, as the man who once kissed your scars like prayers asks you to perform for him.

Your eyes lift to meet his, and in that moment, something shifts.

His smile falters.

Just for a second, you see it: the guilt. The flash of recognition. Like the weight of what he did finally lands. Like maybe, just maybe, he remembers the shape of your laugh in the dark. The way you snuck into his office with coffee just how he liked it. The way you whispered you loved him when you thought he was asleep. The way he promised you weren’t just some girl in his class—that this meant something.

But it didn’t, did it?

Because last night, everything shattered.

You found out about her. The fiancée. The one he never mentioned. The woman whose name is on the lease to his apartment. The one who wears the ring he told you didn’t exist.

He had a life before you, sure. But he kept it during you, too.

And now he stands there like he’s untouchable, like this is just another Tuesday, like you’re just another student with trembling hands and a hollow heart. Like he didn’t break you.

You open your mouth to answer, but the words lodge in your throat like glass.

Because the truth is, you thought he was your forever.

And looking back now?

It was all a lie. A performance. A beautiful, aching illusion. And you were the fool who believed it.