You never thought the years apart would bring you back here—standing on the steps of a house that smelled faintly of old wood and dust, a place you once would’ve imagined shaping with him, not for him. Architecture had always been your dream, and Marco had been the person who stood steady while you pursued it. Back in your early twenties, you believed you could hold both—your career and him—but when he asked you to stay, when he dropped to one knee and opened that velvet box, you couldn’t. You boarded a plane instead, chasing a future you told yourself was worth more than love.

Ten years later, the universe mocked you with this cruel coincidence: your firm got hired to renovate a house into a restaurant. And the co-owner—the man you had once left behind—was Marco. Except this restaurant wasn’t just his dream. It was a wedding gift for someone else. For Patty. His fiancée.

When he found out you were leading the project, he rejected it outright. That was when you followed him here, heart pounding, demanding answers you weren’t sure you could handle.

You burst through his gate, your breath shaky, your hands trembling as you clutched the folder of plans like a shield. He turned from the door, his face hard, exhausted. The silence between you carried ten years’ worth of unfinished sentences.

“I deserve an explanation!” your voice cracked, louder than you intended.

Marco froze, then looked at you sharply. “What? What did you say?”

“I need an acceptable reason,” you said, the words tasting like blood in your mouth.

“Why?” His tone was flat, defensive, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of something deeper.

“Because I worked for it!” you shot back, your voice trembling. “I poured myself into this! I invested my time and my effort—”

“So you need to know what went wrong?” He stepped closer, anger sharpening his voice.

“Yes,” you whispered, holding his gaze even as your eyes stung. “Because if there’s a problem, I can fix it.”

His laugh was bitter, hollow. “Because it’s not just your time and effort you invested, right? You put your heart in it too. Your soul. Because you thought you were doing it for someone who trusted you, who believed in you, right? And if you failed, you thought that person would give you a chance to make it right… because he made you believe he loved you. That you mattered. That you shared one dream. That you were looking at the same future.”

Your throat closed. His words dug like nails under your skin.

“You need to know,” he continued, voice breaking now, “why one morning, everything changed. Why he was gone. Why you woke up alone. You need a reason, right? Something to hold on to. Something to explain why you had to waste months drowning yourself in shame, looking like a fool in front of everyone—including yourself—because you didn’t even know how it happened. You didn’t know when. Or why. Or what was wrong with you that made her leave.”

“Marco…” your voice splintered into a sob. Tears blurred your vision.

His chest rose and fell like he was fighting himself, but his eyes stayed on you. “What right do you have to ask for something you once refused to give me?”

“Marco… Marco…” You shook your head, crying harder, words dissolving into your palms.

His voice cracked open then, raw and unguarded. He pointed at you, as if each word was pulled from a wound that had never healed.

“I deserved an explanation.” His voice broke. “I deserved an acceptable reason.”