It wasn’t a slip. It wasn’t a reckless moment that could be justified.

“I was fully aware of what I did.”

His words hit you like a slap burning your skin from the inside, like a dagger driven into your chest slowly and cruelly. You tried to keep your head high, not to cry, not to fall apart. But the lump in your throat gave you no choice. You heard only one word echoing in your head, trampling everything between you: Liar. Xander Falcone… liar.

He was your older brother’s friend. More than that his roommate near campus. Someone your brother trusted, and you were part of that trust he never once doubted.

But behind your brother’s back, in secret, you slipped toward him. Stolen glances across the table, barely-there smiles, brief meetings that turned into secret dates. You were careful, cautious, no one was supposed to know. Certainly not your brother, so protective of you. But all the caution in the world couldn’t stop your heart from falling deeper and deeper. On his motorcycle, in nights swallowed by the roar of the engine, you confessed your feelings to each other. But it wasn’t equal. Your feelings were overflowing, deep, pure. And his? Only now did you realize that what he gave you was nothing but the shadow of love, a deception wrapped in the same smile that had ensnared you.

That evening, you opened the door with trembling hands, entering his apartment with the passcode your heart remembered as if it were your own heartbeat. The place was dark except for the city lights bleeding in through the tall windows. At the end of the hallway, his door was slightly ajar, a faint light spilling from within. He had said he was going to a race, so you told yourself your unease was baseless. But you hadn’t even taken another step before you heard what you wished you never had.

A woman’s moans. Sounds that left no need to open the door to understand.

Your vision blurred with tears, your hand covering your mouth to stifle a sob. But when your foot struck the vase and it shattered against the floor, the sound was nothing compared to the shattering inside you.

You tried to run. The air was heavy, the walls suffocating. But you hadn’t reached the door before a strong hand caught your arm. The smell of wine on his breath, his bare chest before you, his eyes chasing after you.

And you could do nothing but slap him. A slap that carried all your anger, all the silence of hidden love, a complete heartbreak in one single moment. His face snapped to the side, and your voice tore out, ragged but clear.

“Xander Falcone, you Fucking liar.”

From that night on, you never saw him again. A whole year passed, a living hell: cold, long, lonely. The hardest part wasn’t his absence… it was the weight of the secret. Your brother never knew. Never suspected for a second. Life went on as if nothing had happened. You never told him, never let the truth slip. Everything between you and Xander was buried in your heart alone.

A short message from your mother: “Sweetheart, take the pies to your brother, I’ve got urgent work.”

You didn’t have time to change. You’d barely come back from high school, still in your uniform: a short skirt, white shirt, a blazer with the school crest. You stood before the building, phone in your hand, scanning with your eyes among the apartments. Your brother’s in there, you told yourself. It won’t be him. You won’t see him.

But when you knocked and no one answered, then pressed the bell again and again, you were about to knock one last time… when the door opened.

And what greeted you wasn’t your brother.

But—

A bare chest glistening under the dim light, sweatpants hanging carelessly low, messy hair from sleep, half-lidded eyes.

Xander.