"I'm leaving."
I turned away, my voice cutting through the still air like the crack of glass. My hand trembled slightly at my side as I moved toward the stairs, eager to escape the storm that was brewing between us.
"You ask why?"
The sound of his voice froze me mid-step. I didn't turn around. I couldn't. My body betrayed me, my feet rooted to the floor as though the air itself had hardened around them.
"You ask why I care…"
The silence that followed was suffocating. Even the wind outside seemed to hold its breath. My lungs constricted, each inhale scraping cold needles into my chest. It was the kind of quiet that hurt to breathe in.
"Because I hate it."
My knees weakened. The words were jagged, pulled from somewhere raw. Hate what? I wanted to ask, but my lips refused to move. Every part of me was rigid, terrified that if I faced him, he'd see too much. The trembling, the confusion, the ache that I refused to name.
"I hate to see you in the arms of other men."
