Page 24 of Glass Jawed

Aarohi

I’ve somewhat composed myself by the time Lucian comes back from the bathroom.

I heard everything .

The retching. The muffled sobbing. The raw, unfiltered sounds of a man unraveling behind a closed door. It took him several minutes to stop puking and start dry heaving. And another few minutes before I heard the flush.

But the silence that followed was worse.

My mind replays the last few minutes of my own verbal devastation. Every syllable still feels like shrapnel lodged in my throat.

It was as if the moment those three words left my mouth, the air itself shifted. I watched the destruction ripple outward, swallowing the room whole.

I saw the exact second it hit him, when those words registered and his expression cracked. Whatever guilt or remorse or shame he carried—it all drained out, replaced by raw, soul-deep horror .

I wipe my eyes and nose with the back of my hand. My limbs feel detached, like they belong to someone else. I sink back into the couch, numb. Empty. As though every word I’d just spoken took some part of me with it.

And then... he returns.

He doesn’t say anything at first. His head is bowed so low, it’s like his neck muscles have finally given up. Like the weight of what he’s done has finally tipped him over.

I watch him. I don’t know why.

Maybe I want to see if he’ll meet my eyes. Maybe I want him to. Maybe I don’t.

I speak before I can second guess myself.

“Stop with the food deliveries.”

My voice is flat. Hollow. Final.

“Stop the messages. I don’t ever want to hear from you again.”

He nods, but he still doesn’t look at me.

Coward.

But also— good . Because if he did, I don’t know what I’d see. I don’t know if I could handle it.

His voice is a whisper. Cracked. Broken.

“I...” He swallows. “I never should’ve t-touched you, Aarohi.”

That name on his lips makes something in my chest contract painfully. But I stay silent.

He turns toward the door. And this time, he doesn’t hesitate.

He knows he has to leave. And for once, he doesn’t fight it.

He hesitates at the door, fingers trembling.

“I failed you,” he says, voice so hoarse I almost don’t recognize it. “Not just you. I failed on every human level. As a man . As a person . As someone who thought he was... decent .”

He still doesn’t look at me. I don’t think he can.

“If there were words to take it back,” he continues, slower now, like every syllable scrapes his throat on the way out, “I’d rip them out and hand them to you. But you asked me not to use those words. So I won’t.”

Good.

I don’t want his sorry . Not when it’s always been so easy for him to say. Not when I can’t trust his words anymore.

“Your apologies were always beautiful... and empty .” I mumble.

The flinch taking over his body is almost violent. He nods faintly. I think he’s about to leave.

But then—he stops.

The air shifts.

“If... if you want to take legal action, I won’t contest it.”

My brain stalls.

What?

I turn to face him, frowning, blinking harder now. Is this his sick way of taking accountability? Offering himself up like some tragic martyr so he can feel better about what he did?

His eyes stay on the floor, unmoving.

I scoff, shaking my head in disbelief. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t defend himself. Just swallows—once, hard. Like he knows there’s nothing to say.

And then, just as he reaches for the doorknob, he pauses.

His voice is so quiet, I almost miss it.

“It was when you destroyed me at ping pong on our second date,” he says, barely above a whisper, “that’s when it became less of a plan... and more of a real thing.”

I blink.

I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to feel anything right now.

But his voice cracks—and it slices something in me open.

“And by the time I kissed you for the first time that same night,” he breathes, “it was already too late. I was already... in it. In you. And it was the only thing that didn’t feel like a lie.”

There’s a long pause, like he’s trying to pull something from the deepest part of himself.

“I fell in love with you, Aarohi,” he says, quiet and wrecked. His jaw trembling. “Not because I deserve to be. Not because I expect you to... return it. Not because of the stupid plan. But because... loving you brought the real me back.”

He opens the door.

He doesn’t look back.

He doesn’t wait for a response.

He just... leaves.

And I sit there on the couch, arms still crossed, heart still in pieces, staring at the door he walked out of—wondering why, even now, it hurts this much to lose something I never really had.

It’s been barely five minutes.

I haven’t moved. My jaw still tight. The air feels heavy, like something sacred and ruined is lingering in it.

My phone buzzes.

Liam: Are you okay?

What the hell?

My forehead scrunches. I never told Liam about meeting Lucian today. I never told him anything. Not in days.

Me: ??

The typing bubbles appear almost instantly. And then—

Liam: Don’t kill me. but Lucian told me you might need me.

A breath rattles out of me.

And just like that—without warning—my dry cheeks are wet again.

No dramatic sobbing this time. No gasping. Just tears. Slipping. Sliding. Quiet.

I stare at the text, willing it to disappear. Wishing it hadn’t been sent.

I don’t want to think about the fact that Lucian told Liam to check on me. That somewhere between throwing up in my bathroom and walking out the door with the quietest “I fell in love with you” I’ve ever heard, he still thought I’d need someone.

I don’t want to believe that he loves me in his own deranged, broken way.

No.

That kind of love comes with rot beneath it. With deception, manipulation, and a deliberate stripping of my dignity.

I’m not going to romanticize it.

I won’t let myself.

Another tear slips out anyway.

I squeeze my eyes shut, grip my phone harder than necessary, and inhale through my nose.

No more.

Not tonight.

Not ever .