2 years Ago,
"I can't do this anymore." I heard Rayan's voice echoing behind me. My heart swelled with discomfort, but I did not move. My shoulders tensed when silence prevailed. I kept chopping the vegetables one after the other as if I did not want to admit what I had just heard. It was as if a part of me was rejecting the idea of him saying those menacing words. And then there was a loud thud, one that almost pulled me out of trance. It was followed by raged footsteps, another loud shatter of glass.
I looked back over my shoulder. "You can't do what?" I asked, keeping my cool.
The tall stature stood on a side. His chest, where my head was a few nights ago now heaved with audible breath. The beautiful face I had liked all this time was ashen and angered. His soft smiles I loved were now gone. My mind wandered for a while before he walked to me. "I can't pretend anymore that everything is okay. How do you do this? Act as if this is alright." He gestured his finger between us back and forth once.
"What's wrong?" I asked, my voice softening with the pain that pounded against my chest.
He scoffed and looked away. His one hand ran through his hair. "You know what? I finally get it why you do this? This ignorance is a torture. You want me to admit, me to say what the truth is. If this is your punishment, Fine." He turned to me again, tears brimming in his eyes.
"I am no longer able to love you Elena." He said. I turned away from him, inhaling a sharp breath. He caught my wrist and pulled me in.
"I cannot anymore because you do not know when to stop. I ignore you every-day, act so cruel and you choose to stay. Why?" His eyes shone with a flicker of irritation.
"Why?" He yelled. Finally, without a warning tears rolled down my eyes. I looked down trying not to feel the shame that build inside me.
"When you told me how your first love never valued you, I couldn't understand why. But I will give you a reason today. It is because of your stubbornness, you never dare say what you really feel like a fucking robot, you suffocate people with your perfection." He held my shoulders giving me a jerk. "And it is because I have loved you Elena that I don't want to hurt you any longer."
My heart shattered piece by piece as his words made sense. I leaned into him. He wrapped his arms around me slowly. His hand traced my back as my body shook with the pain. It happened all over again, he did not want me again. The man I had started to fall for, did not want me again. There were no tears forming. My eyes remained dry as ever while my throat ached with all that I wanted to say.
"I am sorry Rayan. I was afraid this would happen. But please, one last time." I muttered against his chest.
"You're Pathetic." He pushed me away and stormed up the stairs. He paused and looked back. "One more thing Elena, making love to you makes me feels like I am never enough for you." I was left on my own in the kitchen. Pain ran through me as I heard the commotion behind me. He was leaving too.
My legs gave away as I leaned down against the wall of kitchen counter. Tears rolled down my eyes. I pressed my head against the counter, as if hiding from him. His steps echoed in the silent house. A loud thud was there, but even louder was his absence.
A sob broke but I held back, covering my face with my hands, trying not to be weak. But what I couldn't see then was the bitter truth that I in-fact was very weak. I was the most miserable person I had ever known. I was "pathetic" as Rayan called me.
From that point, I had wished things went different, they did. But that different life lasted for a short time. I wish someone had warned me about what was to happen. I wish I had known being strong wasn't enough, being powerful wasn't enough, healing wasn't enough. I wish I knew what life had planned for me.
The Present day,
Expensive perfume, lingering cigarette smoke, the faint scent of rain-soaked pavement. Everything submerged me in familiar warmth. Too familiar to ignore but not quite welcome. Five years was long enough to dull the edges of nostalgia, but not enough to erase the memories tied to this place. Not enough to erase the marks of past. This city was where I had grown up, but somehow it still wasn't where my home was. Somewhere along the past years I had been thinking how home feels, if someone gave me a road-map, it would be easier to navigate. The huge heritage mansion, belonged to my family, but was never personal enough.
I exhaled sharply, adjusting the bracelet on my wrist as I stepped into the grand hall. The event was as extravagant as ever—crystal chandeliers casting golden light over a sea of tailored suits and designer dresses, laughter and polite conversation weaving through the air. This was my world once. In many ways, it still was.
"Elena!"
I turned just in time. My aunt's perfume nearly choked me as she squeezed my shoulders, holding me at arm's length to take a better look. "Oh, darling, look at you. More stunning than ever. Why on earth did
you stay away so long?"
Before I could respond, more familiar faces surrounded me—cousins, uncles, family friends—all eager to pull me into conversation. It was an exhausting from the moment I entered but I somehow endured it with ease. Maybe old places pulled us back in old habits as they said. For a moment I felt as if I had never left in the first place. It was all the same how I left it, yet nothing was familiar.
A weight of a stare had been on me since I looked around. The kind of stare that I had never been able to forget. I had not bothered searching the crowd again. I walked to the bar, grabbing a drink and leaned against the counter. My hands lazily brushed the rim while I mustered the courage to look up and search the crowd.
"Ah, Elena," a smooth, elegant voice cut through the distraction, making the hair on my neck stand on end. "I was just looking for you."
Madam Liang. How could I not recognize her voice? My eyes shot up to her face.
My smile didn't falter, though my stomach tightened. She had always been a force of nature, and clearly, time had not changed that.
"I hope you've been well," I greeted, keeping my tone light. Her eyes held mine in a silence that lasted just over a second. The deep brown eyes reminded me of so many things, including her son. They studied me, reading through my soul as if she knew it all, as if she could guess what my thoughts were. It was as if she knew how overbearing her power was for those who looked her in the eyes. And then a smile. The knowing side smile, putting her dimple on a show.
"Oh, better now that you're back," her fingers wrapping gently around my wrist before I could think of an escape. "Come with me."
My heart sank. I knew exactly where this was going.
I opened my mouth to make some excuse, but before I could, she was already leading me through the crowd, weaving effortlessly between guests as if she had planned this ambush well in advance. I could have protested, but that would have made a scene. So, I let her guide me straight into the lion's den. I looked up, keeping my shoulders back and head straight as if the anxiety wasn't creeping in.
And there he was. Johnathan Liang.
A rush of memories flooded my system. I inhaled a tight breath, as if eroding them further away, right where they came from.
He hadn't changed. Not in the way that mattered. Same sharp gaze. Same unreadable expression. The same tall stature, even fuller, even powerful. The Same brown eyes and perfectly chiselled jaw. His lips were pressed in the same thin line they usually were. Our eyes met when he turned his head towards me. his gaze shifted from his mother's face to mine. For a second, I was pulled back to the past, the same moment I had been at five years ago, mesmerized from the cold stare he casted. His deep, intentional stare pulled me in for a fraction of second. I wasn't the same, he wasn't the same. I had to remind myself once again.
He was the same man who had once shattered my heart into tiny little pieces. As I stood in front of him, something stirred in my chest. "Elena," he acknowledged, his voice smooth and measured as always. There was something about his stare, I almost felt a scowl forming on his face
I had not heard my name called with such nothingness in years.
I forced my lips into a soft smile, perfectly polite, perfectly distant. "Johnathan." My voice came out softer than I had hoped.
"You were always such good friends." If Madam Liang noticed the tension crackling between us, she didn't show it. Instead, she beamed, clasping her hands together. Her voice pulled my attention away.
I bit back the urge to laugh. Good friends? Sure. I nodded gently, looking away.
"Mother," Johnathan finally spoke, his voice edged with something unreadable. "I'm sure Elena has other people to greet tonight."
Madam Liang waved him off. "Nonsense. A little chat won't hurt."
I saw the way his jaw tightened, the way his fingers curled ever so slightly around his glass. He didn't want this any more than I did. The bitterness of the past surfaced. He always did that, the irritated gestures. In the past what I mistook for the so-called 'effect' I had on him was now plain irritation that lingered beneath his indifferent behaviour.
I let the silence stretch, let him feel the weight of it. I inhaled a breath, shifting my eyes to his face again. I tilted my head up gently as if nudging him to say something.
He was the first to break. "I didn't expect to see you here." We both knew, it was just because his mother was standing beside us.
"I could say the same." I muttered.
His gaze flickered over me, slow and assessing. "You don't live here anymore."
I tilted my head slightly, feigning curiosity. "Isn't that a good thing?"
His lips pressed into a thin line, irritation flashing across his face for just a second. I shouldn't have enjoyed that moment as much as I did. But I did. A small smile started to form.
Madam Liang, clearly satisfied with her matchmaking attempt, excused herself, leaving us in a silence that felt heavier than it should have.
I had spent years imagining what it would be like to face him again. I had pictured countless scenarios, each one more dramatic than the last.
But standing here now, I felt foolish. If anything, the resent he carried for me in those eyes was deep rooted like time had not even passed. It was as if nothing changed. It was just like I had walked back in time to be faced by the same man who broke my heart once, and would willingly do it again.
"I should get back," I said finally, stepping away before he could respond. I turned around walking away, my hands clutched my phone held in them.
While I walked away, I turned my head stealing another glance at him. My eyes met his again. His eyes were still on me and this time even colder. I turned away. He had never bothered paying more attention than needed. Something clicked within me. My heart picked pace as a slow realization set in my chest.
I knew something was wrong, something was so dearly wrong about his stare. Something was wrong about the room and the Liangs. Something was wrong about my family's behavior towards me. Something was wrong about me being back here all over again.
Not this time.