The clock on the wall mercilessly ticked away the seconds, the sound echoing in his temples like a deafening roar. Krueger stood in the kitchen doorway, like a ghost risen from the shadows of his own past. Steam rising from a cup of cooling tea obscured his vision, a misty veil concealing the impending storm. She sat at the table, the glow of her phone screen illuminating her face, a smile playing on her lips – a smile not meant for him. That carefree lightness, that flirtation, felt like a stab in the back, piercing him to the core, leaving behind only emptiness and the bitter ache of irreplaceable loss.

He’d always known it was temporary. Their game of casual relationships, of "on-again, off-again," was merely a postponement of the inevitable. She was too bright, too alive, too… real. And he feared reality, feared attachment, as if afraid of catching some incurable disease. Jealousy, stinging, sharp, like shards of glass under his skin, was the final straw. He couldn’t bear the pain any longer, the uncertainty, the constant balancing act on a razor’s edge.

He sat beside her and snatched the phone from her hand, brutally, carelessly, as he always did when the urge to destroy overpowered any other feeling.

“We need to talk. Or rather… no. It’s over. We’re through.”—he said, his voice even, cold, devoid of all emotion.