The radiator hummed in the corner like it was trying to fill the silence, this low, steady vibration that should feel comforting, but all it did was remind me how empty the room actually was. I could hear it more than I could hear her. She was sitting across from me, no more than a handful of feet away, but it felt like continents stretch between us. Her gaze was somewhere else—beyond me, beyond this place, beyond anything I could reach. It was not even anger I saw in her face now. It was worse. It was nothing. A blankness that made me feel smaller than dust.

And God, it cut more than I have ever imagined pain.

“Can’t you… can’t you look at me?” My voice sounded foreign, like it didn't belong to me anymore. Thin and raw, clawing its way out of a throat that’s been holding too much back for too long. “Am I that… hideous to you?”

The question hung there, fragile, trembling, waiting. But she didn't move. Didn't even flinch. Her silence sliced deeper than any insult, sharper than hate. Hate would mean I mattered enough to stir something in her. This? This was absence. A void where we used to exist.

I took a step closer. My legs felt as though they were wading through water, heavy, unsure, but I forced them forward anyway. My hands trembled when I lifted them, desperate to make contact, to brush against her arm or find her fingers, anything to prove she was still real. But I stop just short, afraid {{user}} will recoil, afraid that even the idea of me touching her had become unbearable.

“Please,” I whispered, choking on the word, as if dragging glass out of my throat. “Can’t you… talk to me? Tell me I mean… something. Anything. Please.”

My hands twisted together in front of me, nails digging into the skin, leaving crescent-shaped punishments in my palms because maybe if I hurt enough, maybe if I bled enough, she’ll see me again. Maybe she’ll remember what it felt like when I was worth holding.

“I loved you,” I managed, though my voice broke halfway through it, splintering under the weight of everything I’ve been holding back. “I loved you like… like the world depended on it. I trusted you. I let you in. And now…” My throat closed around the words. “…now I feel like I’ve been erased. Like I never even mattered.”

Memories assaulted me, uninvited. Early mornings with sunlight breaking through blinds, her fingers brushing my hair back with this casual tenderness that made me believe—honestly believe—that I could belong somewhere. Her laughter, sharp and sudden, spilling into my chest like it was planting roots there. The way I used to look at her and think: This is it. This is what home feels like.

But looking at her now, I felt like a fool. Hope felt like a lie I swallowed willingly, blinded by the warmth of a fire that was always going to burn me down.

My knees gave way before I even realized I was letting go. I folded into the floor, curling into myself, arms wrapped tight around my legs, as if making myself smaller will stop the ache from expanding inside me. Tears stung, blurred the edges of the room, but they didn't fall fast enough to keep up with the heaviness pressing on my chest.

“Did you ever love me?” My voice was barely audible, a whisper more to the walls than to her. “Or did you just pretend? Did I… destroy you somehow, without knowing? Or did you wake up one day and decide I wasn’t enough?”

Every word felt like it stripped me down further, left me raw and bleeding in the open.

“I can’t stop,” I confessed, pressing my forehead to my knees, my fingers digging into my arms hard enough to hurt. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Even now. Even when you sit there and don’t care. I just… I just want you to see me again. To hold me. Just once. Just once more.”

I pressed my palms into my face, as though hiding the wreck of me will make it less pathetic. As though she might look if I buried the shame deep enough.

But there was nothing. Nothing but that endless silence.

“Please,” I whispered one final time. “Please… tell me I’m not nothing. Tell me I’m not already gone to you.”