Chapter 42: Like Magnets

Tears blurred my vision and before Kevin would say something else that'd cripple me, I quickly unlocked the door and ran out of the room. I heard him curse loudly but I didn't want to care.

I was alone in all of this and he didn't want me anymore.

The sudden adrenaline to go back to the wedding ceremony hall and trash the whole party felt like the right thing to do but I'd end up as the headlines of the city’s tabloids by morning. So I ran into my room and into my bathroom instead and shut the door.

No one knew and would understand the pain in my chest and the one person who might actually understand, wanted to break things up.

I leaned against the bathroom door, trying to breathe, but the air felt too thick. My whole body shook. My fingers, my knees, even my lips—they wouldn’t stop trembling. My reflection in the mirror across the room looked almost unrecognizable, like someone who had just watched her entire world collapse. My makeup was smudged, my eyes red and swollen, but it wasn’t the tears that hurt—it was the silence that followed them.

It was like everything went quiet after Kevin’s words. That silence wrapped around me, heavy and cruel, until I couldn’t tell if I was breathing or just existing. I slid down to the cold tiled floor, pulling my knees up to my chest, and let out a sound that wasn’t quite a sob but wasn’t strength either—it was somewhere in between.

I kept thinking about the way he looked at me before he said it. There was pain in his eyes, yes, but also distance—like he had already left, like I was already a memory. And I hated how I could still love him even when he was the one destroying me.

I wanted to scream. To throw something. To rip apart every reminder of him that still lingered in my room. But I just sat there, frozen, listening to the sound of my shallow breathing echo off the walls. My head ached from holding it all in, my chest tight from everything I couldn’t say.

The room smelled faintly of soap and perfume, but even that felt wrong—like it didn’t belong to me anymore. Nothing did. Not the house, not the mirror, not even my name. Everything felt tainted by what we were and what we could never be.

I pressed the heel of my hand against my eyes, trying to stop more tears from spilling, but they came anyway. Warm, relentless, humiliating. “Why?” I whispered to no one. My voice cracked. “Why did it have to be this hard?”

No one answered, of course. There was no sound except for the water dripping slowly from the faucet, rhythmic and cruel. I kept thinking if I just stayed quiet enough, maybe the ache would fade. Maybe I’d wake up tomorrow and this would all be some kind of nightmare I could laugh about.

But deep down, I knew better. Kevin wasn’t coming back through that door. And even if he did, something inside both of us had already broken beyond repair.

So I stayed there—barely breathing, lost in the quiet—wishing I could undo everything that had brought us to this moment, and hating that I couldn’t.

Then I suddenly heard Kevin's voice in my room and soon he was knocking hard on my bathroom door.

"Abby... Open up please..." he said.

I ignored him, but I guess hearing my continuous sobs made him protest.

"Abby... Please open up. Let's talk," he said again.

I snapped. "There’s nothing to talk about!"

"Abby..."

"Go away!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

There was silence for a moment, and I thought he had left already—but then I heard his voice again.

"Abby, open the door or I burn it down."

Kevin growled, and I knew he was angry, but it didn’t faze me.

Then I immediately twisted the lock and yanked the door open. He closed the space between us in one stride and pushed me up against the bathroom wall in a rush that caused the shower to turn on. I didn’t even react to the sudden impact of the cold water on me.

In seconds, we were both drenched, and he looked down at me—neither of us moving, neither of us turning off the shower.

His index finger trailed the line of my bra that was shamelessly peeking out.

“Damn... you’ll be the death of me, Abby.” His lips hovered over mine.

The water poured over us like shards of ice, hitting my skin in quick, stinging bursts that I barely felt. My body was shaking, but not from the cold. I could feel my pulse thrumming beneath my skin, wild and uneven, like my body was trying to make sense of something my heart had already lost control over.

Kevin’s face was so close I could count the drops of water clinging to his eyelashes. His breath mixed with mine—warm, desperate, uneven. Every muscle in me tensed, and yet... I didn’t push him away. I couldn’t. I hated myself for it, but I didn’t move.

Everything in me wanted to scream at him for what he’d said earlier—for breaking me, for walking away when I needed him most—but now he was here, and all the anger that had felt so righteous just moments ago was slipping into something else. Something terrifying.

I wanted to hate him. I wanted to shove him away and scream until my throat burned. But the way his eyes searched mine—like he was fighting himself just as much as I was—it made something inside me ache even more.

The water kept falling, loud and merciless, like the world outside didn’t exist. My hair clung to my face, mascara smudging down my cheeks, but he didn’t seem to care. He just looked at me—like he was trying to memorize everything about this moment, like he already knew it shouldn’t be happening.

And I knew it too.

I knew what we were doing, what this meant—what it could destroy—but still, I couldn’t bring myself to move. His hand hovered near my jaw, not quite touching, trembling just slightly. I felt the heat of him through the cold water, and my heart twisted painfully.

Then like magnet, our lips glued together.