The Love That Broke Me

I wasn't expecting anything that day, not even a conversation.

I had learned how to move quietly, how to avoid catching eyes that weren't looking for me, how to exist without taking up space.

But that day, he looked at me.

It was a Wednesday, I remember because the sky was gray and restless, the kind of sky that makes you feel like something is coming. Something unexpected. Something that might either heal or ruin you.

I was standing by the tap just outside the lecture hall, rinsing my hands after someone had spilled soda on my book. My hair was a mess, my voice was stuck somewhere behind my pride, and my heart, well, it hadn't known love in a while.

Then I heard his voice, smooth but not arrogant, calm like evening rain.

"You alright?"

I turned, slowly, expecting a random classmate, maybe someone asking for directions.

But no. It was him.

I didn't know his name then, but something in the way he looked at me made me pause. He didn't look past me like most people did. He looked into me.

"I'm fine," I said, but my voice cracked in the middle.

He smiled, not the kind that made you feel small, but the kind that made you wonder if you were glowing.

He offered his hand and said, "I'm Liam."

I didn't take it at first. I just nodded, like a fool, pretending I wasn't already curious. But curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially when the person it's tied to has eyes like that. Warm brown, soft around the corners, the kind that holds stories and secrets.

I told him my name, and for a second, just one small second, it felt like the world paused.

We didn't talk long that day. He was meeting someone. I was running late for a group assignment I wasn't even interested in. But before he walked away, he said, "I'll see you around, okay?"

And he did.

Over the next few weeks, he kept finding me or maybe I kept placing myself where he could.

By the school gate.

At the food stand near the library.

In the reading room I never used before he mentioned he liked it there.

He wasn't loud or flashy. He didn't try too hard. But he noticed the small things, the way I picked at my nails when I was nervous, how I covered my mouth when I laughed, how I avoided eye contact when I was upset.

And slowly, gently, like rain seeping into dry ground, he started filling the cracks I didn't even know were there.

I didn't realize how lonely I had been until he started walking beside me.

One evening, under the large mango tree near the back of campus, he told me his story. His real one.

Not the "I'm good, everything is fine" story most people tell.

He talked about his father walking out, about being raised by a mother who worked three jobs.

He talked about losing his elder brother in an accident and how that loss made him grow up overnight.

I remember sitting beside him, my hands clasped on my lap, heart heavy with the weight of his truth.

And then he turned to me and asked, "What about you?"

I looked away.

Because my truth wasn't pretty either.

I didn't tell him everything that night. But I told him enough.

Enough for him to understand why I flinched when people raised their voices,

Why I didn't believe people who said they'd stay,

Why I had built so many walls around myself.

He didn't try to knock them down.

He just sat there, patient, his hand brushing lightly against mine.

"Let's build something soft," he whispered.

"Something that doesn't hurt."

And I believed him.

Oh God, I believed him.

Weeks turned to months.

We started doing everything together from walking to lectures to late night calls filled with sleepy laughter and whispered dreams.

He would wait for me after class, send me songs that reminded him of me, and sneak notes into my books.

I started smiling again.

Real smiles.

Not the polite ones I had mastered over the years.

My friends noticed.

My mother noticed.

"You look lighter," she said one weekend when I visited home.

"Like you're beginning to forgive the world."

Maybe I was.

Because for the first time in forever, someone saw me, chose me, and stayed.

And then...

One evening, I called him.

No answer.

I called again.

Still nothing.

That night, I couldn't sleep.

A strange ache settled in my chest.

The next day, he didn't come to campus.

No messages. No explanations.

By the third day, I started to panic.

I asked around.

Everyone said the same thing.

"He traveled."

Where?

Why?

With who?

No one had answers.

It was on the fifth day that I saw the post

A picture of him on Instagram.

Smiling.

Holding someone else.

A girl.

Kissing her cheek.

The caption?

"Where I belong."

I don't remember how long I stared at that picture.

I don't remember if I was breathing.

All I know is that something inside me cracked so loud I could almost hear it.

His smile.

His arm around her.

Her hand resting on his chest like she had always belonged there.

And that caption, four words that ripped me wide open.

"Where I belong."

As if I had been nothing more than a detour, a pause on his way to her.

As if everything we shared meant nothing.

I sat there, phone trembling in my hand, fingers numb, chest tight.

I tried to tell myself it was a misunderstanding. Maybe it was an old picture. Maybe he was playing a prank. Maybe... maybe I was dreaming.

But deep down, I knew.

This was real.

He had disappeared from me only to reappear in someone else's arms.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to throw something, break something.

But I couldn't even cry.

Not yet.

Instead, I did what I always did when things hurt too much, I went quiet.

The following day, I walked through campus like a ghost.

Everyone around me was talking, laughing, living.

But I felt like I was floating outside my own body.

When my friend Jordan sat beside me in the reading room, I didn't look up.

She placed her hand on mine gently and said, "I saw it."

I said nothing.

There was nothing to say.

She hesitated, then whispered, "Are you okay?"

It was such a simple question.

But it felt like a knife.

Because no, I wasn't okay.

I was the furthest thing from okay.

I was falling apart in slow motion, and no one could see it.

Later that night, I found the strength to send him a message.

"I saw the picture.

I just want to understand.

Was I ever real to you?"

He didn't reply.

Not that day.

Not the next.

But two days later, he finally answered.

"I didn't mean for you to find out like that.

I'm sorry."

That was all.

No explanation.

No regret.

Just those seven words.

I stared at the message, rereading it over and over until the screen blurred.

How do you apologize for breaking someone like that?

How do you say sorry for pretending to build a home in someone's heart, only to burn it down without warning?

I typed a reply.

Deleted it.

Typed another.

Deleted again.

What was the point?

No message could fix what had shattered.

No words could make him love me again.

That night, I cried.

I cried until my pillow was soaked, until my chest ached, until my eyes burned.

I cried not just for him

I cried for the girl I had become, for the trust I had given so easily, for the love I thought was safe.

And somewhere between the tears, I made a promise to myself.

I would not let this destroy me.

Not completely.

But healing doesn't come easy.

And forgetting him, that was even harder.

The following week, he showed up at campus again.

I saw him before he saw me.

He was laughing with someone near the food vendor, that same easy smile on his face, like the world hadn't just collapsed inside me.

I turned around, heart thudding.

I wasn't ready.

Later that day, he messaged me again.

"Can we talk?"

I stared at the message for minutes.

Why now?

What was left to say?

But deep down, I wanted answers.

I wanted closure.

I wanted to hear from his mouth that it hadn't meant as much to him as it did to me.

That I wasn't crazy for feeling shattered.

So I replied.

"Tomorrow. By the mango tree. 5 p.m."

I spent the whole next day anxious.

Staring at the clock.

Fixing my hair.

Wiping my palms.

Reminding myself not to cry in front of him.

When 5 p.m. came, I was already waiting.

The tree stood silent, just like before, branches swaying softly with the wind.

And then I saw him walking toward me.

He looked nervous.

Hands in his pockets.

Eyes searching.

When he finally reached me, he didn't speak immediately.

He just looked at me, like he was trying to remember the last time we were happy.

"Thank you for meeting me," he said softly.

I nodded but didn't return the smile.

I was done smiling for him.

"I owe you the truth," he said, voice cracking.

"I didn't plan to fall for her. I just... I reconnected with her during the break, and everything happened so fast. But it didn't mean I didn't care about you. I did. I still do."

I flinched.

He still did?

What kind of twisted comfort was that?

"You cared?" I whispered.

"Then why didn't you say goodbye?"

He looked away.

"I didn't know how. I didn't want to hurt you."

"But you did," I said, my voice rising.

"You left me to wonder what I did wrong. You disappeared like I was nothing."

"I'm sorry," he said again.

But it was too late for sorry.

And just when I thought it was over

Just when I thought the worst of it had passed,

He said it.

He looked me in the eyes and said,

"I think I made a mistake."