Kieran's POV
The weeks blurred together, a slow, simmering torment. Anh and I still had our moments—glimpses of what we used to be, fleeting but familiar, like slipping into something that once fit perfectly. But those moments were fewer now, buried beneath an unspoken weight neither of us dared acknowledge. We still laughed, still talked, but something between us had shifted, stretched too thin to ignore.
Then there were the nights. The nights were unbearable.
Nathan—always louder than necessary—his voice, his presence filling the apartment, seeping through the walls. The creak of her bed, the muffled gasps, the unmistakable rhythm of them together—it was torture, a cruel symphony I had no choice but to endure. And Anh, her laughter, her muffled sounds, proof that she belonged to someone else. Every night, I lay there, staring at the ceiling, fists clenched, body tense with something I refused to name. Jealousy. Frustration. Longing. All of it coiled tight in my chest, a pressure that never eased. It wasn't just that she was his—it was the way it felt like she was trying to drown something out, just like me. And maybe that was the cruelest part of it all.
Some nights, I imagined storming into her room, dragging her out of his arms, making her say out loud what I already knew—that even as he moved inside her, some part of her belonged to me. But I never did. Instead, I memorized the way her presence lingered in the silence, the way she avoided my gaze in the mornings, the way my name always felt different on her lips now—softer, hesitant, like she knew what we weren't saying.
One night, after another endless round of listening to them, I couldn't take it anymore. The air was too thick, the walls too thin. I got up, paced the living room, staring out at the city lights through the fogged glass. My reflection stared back at me, hollow-eyed and exhausted, as if daring me to do something. But what? Where could I go? Where could I run from the thing I wanted most?
When she finally emerged from her room, she didn't look surprised to see me. She offered that same soft smile—the one that always made it worse.
"Hey," she said, as if she didn't know exactly what I was thinking.
"Hey," I replied, forcing a calm I didn't feel. But inside, I was screaming, How long are we going to pretend?
She stood there, bare feet against the hardwood, hair slightly messy, skin still warm from someone else's touch. And still, my eyes betrayed me, tracing every line of her, memorizing the details as if they were mine to keep. She was untouchable. And yet, she was the only thing I wanted.
I swallowed hard and turned away, forcing my feet to move before I did something stupid. Before I let her see the wreckage she left behind.
–––––––––––––––––––––––
I started spending more time out after that. Avoidance became my survival tactic. When I wasn't out, I filled the void with women who meant nothing—distractions, fleeting and forgettable. They laughed, moaned, pressed their bodies into mine, but none of it mattered. None of them were her.
But this time, she was the one forced to listen.
I wondered if she felt it too. If she lay awake, staring at the ceiling, pretending she didn't hear. Pretending she didn't care. But I knew better. I saw it in the way she avoided my gaze in the mornings, in the way her smile faltered when I mentioned my latest conquest. And yet, she never said a word.
Then one night, I caught her watching me from the kitchen doorway. She didn't speak, but she didn't need to. The question was there, hanging between us in the silence. A quiet accusation. A deeper kind of hurt.
I leaned back in my chair, smirking just enough to keep the moment from slipping into something real. "Couldn't sleep?"
She hesitated, then shook her head, forcing a smile. "Just getting water."
She turned, and I let her go. But I watched her, jaw tight, breath shallow, knowing exactly where this road led.
And wondering how much longer we could keep pretending before it all came crashing down.