Chapter 38 Emptiness
Will’s P.O.V.
I rise from the floor, feeling like I’m drowning. I badly need a cold shower to clear my mind. I drag myself to my room with heavy legs. It feels like they’re made of stone.
As I open the door, I feel complete silence in my room. Not the peaceful kind of silence, but the kind that suffocates you.
Then my eyes fall on the nightstand, on the photo frame of us. The one she gifted me.
I walk toward it, taking slow steps. I pick it up with the same hand that’s still holding the necklace. My fingers trace over our picture as I stare at it with a painful smile. I remember that moment clearly, her head resting on my shoulder, both of us smiling, like we had the whole world in our arms. She snapped that selfie instantly, capturing us just as we were.
And I remember the day she gave me the photo frame as if it happened just yesterday.
Flashback
“Will, I got something for you.” She held out a box wrapped neatly in gift paper, her eyes shining with excitement.
No one had ever given me a gift randomly like that. My friends gave me presents, sure, but only on my birthday or on special occasions. Not like this. She was different. That’s why she was special to me.
I feel overwhelmed and couldn’t control myself. I just pulled her into my arms, hugging her tight. For a second she froze, surprised by my sudden gesture, but then she wrapped her arms around me, placing her hands gently on my back. I pulled her even closer, tightening the embrace, and whispered against her shoulder, “Fuck! I love you so much, Professor.”
I felt her smile against my chest when she heard my confession, one I made to her every day, but always with the same truth.
When I finally pulled away, she handed me the box again, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Open it now!”
I unwrapped it, and there it was a framed photo of us. It was beautiful. We looked perfect together. I couldn’t stop smiling as I stared at it.
I moved my gaze to her face. “It’s beautiful.”
Then she takes it from my hands. “Now it’s time to set this frame in your room.”
I watch her walk over to my nightstand, clearing space with such care before placing the frame there herself.
“Perfect.” She turns back to me. “Even when you’re alone, you’ll remember you’re mine.”
“I don’t even need anything to remind myself that I’m yours, Professor,” I say as I grab her waist, pulling her close. “But I love the gift, and now my house will finally feel like home because of this.”
I smile at her, then softly press my lips against hers, holding her in my arms.
Her fingers tangle in my hair, her soft moans fill the room, and the way she looks at me between kisses, it’s like I’m her home.
She didn’t just walk into my life. She filled it with colours. She painted the cold walls of my house into something that finally felt like… home.
Flashback over
I drop down onto the bed, still clutching the frame to my chest. My body aches to feel her beside me again, to taste her lips, to hold her like I did that day, but she’s nowhere. I’m left only with memories of her.
Our frame.
Her necklace.
Things I hug close to my heart.
I curl up on my side, tears spilling silently on the pillow. My breath comes in broken gasps as I press the photo tighter against me, as if I can somehow pull her out of it and bring her back.
I lie there, crying, kissing the glass of the frame like I’m begging it to return her to me, when I’m the one who pushed her away.
I shattered her. I know I did wrong to both of us in my rage. Fuck! I just destroyed our little world.
Why did I do this to us?
I lie there for what feels like forever, clutching the frame like it’s the last piece of her I have left.
I close my eyes, breathing in her memories, remembering the way her body melted into me that day, how I felt blessed to have her, as nothing could come between us.
But then the memory of today flashes in my mind again.
The café.
The guy.
The way she sat with him, like she belonged there.
Her lies.
The way she told me she was at home with her mom while she was somewhere else. With someone else.
She lied to me.
How could she lie to me?
I sit up suddenly, wiping the tears from my face roughly, like I’m angry with myself for feeling this much.
"She lied," I whisper, the words burning in my throat. "She lied to me first. She hurt me first."
I look down at the frame in my hands. We were so happy in this picture. She made me feel like I was her whole world. But she betrayed me. She broke my heart.
She was the one who broke us.
Wasn’t she?
I gently set the frame down on the nightstand, the same way she did that day.
"Maybe this is what we were always meant to become. A memory. Just… a memory,” I say in a broken voice.
Fuck these feelings.
I get up from the bed and head to the bathroom, desperate for a cold shower to clear my head, to quiet the storm raging inside me.
I get naked and step under the shower, turning the knob to cold. The water hits my body, but I feel nothing. It doesn’t wash away what happened today. It doesn’t ease the pain. Just yesterday, I was talking to her, smiling, happy in my own world, and now everything is gone.
I can’t wash her out of me.
Not from my heart.
Not from my mind.
I press my palm against the cold tile, my head hanging low as the water runs over me.
I wanted her to feel what I felt.
But now all I feel is emptiness.
And the worst part is I still love her. I can’t stop loving her. No matter what.
Deep inside, I’m still hoping we’ll find a way back to each other again.