Chapter 33

Author's pov

Mona’s heels clicked sharply against the pavement as I made my way to the front door. The sound, rhythmic and almost soothing, was all I could focus on. Ian’s yelling was muffled by the noise of my own thoughts, the overwhelming rush of emotions flooding my chest. I had no intention of turning around. No intention of listening to the chaos he was spitting out behind me.

"Mona!" His voice cracked through the stillness of the night air, rough with frustration, with something darker—something raw. "Mona, stop!"

I heard him closing the distance between us, his footsteps pounding against the concrete. But I wasn’t going to stop. I wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction of making me feel small or guilty anymore. I gripped my bag tighter, swinging it to the side in a movement that felt almost mechanical, as though I was trying to shake off the weight of everything he had just said to me.

But then, just as I reached for the doorknob, I felt his hand on my shoulder. He yanked me back, pulling me toward him with an intensity that startled me.

“No!” I gasped, instinctively struggling in his grasp. But Ian was faster. Stronger. And in one swift movement, he shoved me against the cold brick of the house, pinning me there with his body.

My breath caught in my throat, my pulse hammering in my ears as I stared up at him, stunned. His chest was rising and falling erratically, his face contorted in anger, frustration, and something else—something deeper, darker.

“You think you can just walk away?” Ian’s voice was low, dangerous. He was so close to me that I could feel the heat radiating from his skin, could smell the sharp scent of his cologne mixed with the sweat from his earlier outburst. His breath was unsteady as he stared down at me, his eyes burning with something I couldn't quite place. “You think you can keep pushing me away like this without any consequences?”

I swallowed hard, the words I wanted to say stuck somewhere between my heart and my throat. I was angry. I was heartbroken. I wanted to scream, but the words felt tangled up inside of me, suffocating me.

“Ian, let go of me,” I managed, my voice shaking, though I couldn’t tell if it was from fear or something else entirely.

He didn’t move, though. His grip tightened on my arms, forcing me to stay in place, trapped between him and the wall. The air around us was thick, tense, as though every inch between us was charged with some unspoken energy that neither of us knew how to handle.

“Stop being so stubborn,” he said through clenched teeth, his words low but firm, like a command.

Stubborn. The word rang in my ears, slicing through the fog of my emotions. I shook my head, trying to break free, but he didn’t release me. Instead, he leaned in closer, his face inches from mine, his breath ghosting across my skin. My chest ached with the space between us, a distance I couldn’t close, no matter how hard I tried.

“I don’t care,” I whispered, feeling the tears welling up in my eyes, threatening to spill over. “You chose her. You chose her over me. You chose someone who isn’t even half the person I am. Someone who doesn’t care about you the way I do.”

Ian’s face twisted, as if my words had struck him, maybe harder than I realized. He blinked, his hand shaking slightly as it hovered near my face. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him anymore. He had been so cruel to me, so angry. And yet, in that moment, there was something softer beneath it all. Something raw. Something broken.

“I didn’t choose her,” he muttered, his voice suddenly tight, as though the confession he was about to make was too much for him. “I never wanted her. I never wanted to hurt you, Mona.”

The shock of his words hit me like a punch to the gut. My mind raced, scrambling to make sense of what he had just said, but the words themselves were enough to stop me in my tracks.

“Then why?” I whispered, my heart hammering in my chest. “Why did you do it, Ian? Why did you push me away? Why did you keep yelling at me?”

Ian’s jaw clenched, his eyes dark and unreadable. He stepped back slightly, but his presence still loomed over me like a storm cloud, heavy and all-consuming. I could see the struggle within him, the conflict tearing at him from the inside out. He took a shaky breath before speaking again, his words laced with a vulnerability I had never heard from him before.

“Because I was scared,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Scared of what I felt for you. Scared that I would lose you, no matter what I did.”

My brow furrowed in confusion, my thoughts a whirlwind. “Scared of me?” I repeated, my voice trembling. “You… you treated me like I was nothing. Like I didn’t matter.”

“I know,” Ian admitted, his voice cracking. “And I hated myself for it. But I was terrified, Mona. Terrified that you’d realize how much I needed you and then leave me anyway. So I pushed you away before you had the chance to.”

I felt a knot form in my throat, tears threatening to spill over as I stared at him, trying to piece together the shattered fragments of the person standing before me. My heart was torn, bleeding, because I understood. I understood the fear, the panic that made him lash out. But it didn’t excuse the way he had treated me. The way he had hurt me.

“You can’t just... just push me away like that, Ian,” I choked out, the tears finally escaping and streaming down my cheeks. “You can’t make me believe that you didn’t care, that I didn’t matter.”

“I did care,” he said urgently, his hands reaching for me as if he couldn’t bear the distance between us. “I do care. I care more than you’ll ever know.”

I stared at him, my chest tight with everything that had happened, every word that had been spoken, every moment we had shared. And for the first time in what felt like forever, I felt the weight of everything between us finally start to shift, if only just a little.