It was raining when Nathan didn't pick my calls.
Not the soft kind of rain that soothes you, but the kind that claws at the windows,
soaks through your shoes,
and makes you remember everything you've tried to forget.
His silence pressed against my chest like a stone.
Every unanswered ring felt heavier than the one before it.
Then, hours later, my phone vibrated.
A text. Four words.
"Busy. Need time to think."
Time to think.
The four words that feel like goodbye wearing a polite mask.
The kind you've seen before but still pretend you don't recognize.
I put my phone down and stared at the ceiling until the rain became too loud to ignore.
I couldn't breathe inside the walls of my room,
so I walked — barefoot in slippers,
rain soaking through the thin fabric of my dress —
to the small café where we first met.
It hadn't changed.
Same chipped wooden tables. Same crooked neon sign buzzing above the counter.
I sat by the same window seat,
watched drops race each other down the glass,
and wondered when love became something we had to defend instead of something that simply was.
Then I saw him.
Nathan.
Outside.
In the rain.
Talking to Marcus.
My breath caught in my throat.
They were too far for me to hear their words,
but Marcus's smirk said enough.
It was the smirk of someone who knew exactly which knife to twist.
Nathan's shoulders looked heavy, his hands stuffed into his wet pockets.
He didn't look angry. He looked tired.
And that, somehow, hurt more.
Minutes later, he walked in.
His shirt damp.
His eyes full of storm.
He didn't order anything. Didn't shake off the rain.
He just sat across from me, his gaze fixed on the table like it held all the answers.
I didn't ask.
I was afraid of what he'd say.
Finally, he spoke. Quietly.
"He said you'll leave me too. That you always do when people start seeing your flaws."
The words fell between us like shards of glass.
I stared at him, heart breaking slow. "And do you believe that?"
He hesitated. His jaw tensed, the muscle in his cheek flickering like a warning light.
"I want to say no," he said, "but I don't know what to believe anymore."
The honesty hurt more than a lie.
Because a lie you can fight.
But a truth — especially one that doubts you —
can only sit inside your chest and echo.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to tell him Marcus was wrong, that I wasn't her anymore —
the girl who fled at the first sign of pain,
the girl who mistook survival for love.
But the words tangled inside my throat.
Because part of me wasn't sure if I'd become stronger or just better at pretending.
I took a deep breath.
"Nathan, if you think I'll leave, just remember —"
my voice cracked —
"I only run from what breaks me, not from what fights for me."
He looked at me then, really looked,
like he was trying to measure the distance between the girl sitting before him
and the one Marcus had painted in his mind.
His eyes softened for a heartbeat. Then his jaw clenched again.
"Then fight for me, Elena."
Three words.
A challenge.
A plea.
And maybe for the first time, I didn't know if I could.
Not because I didn't love him,
but because love had begun to feel like a battlefield where both of us were already wounded.
Outside, the rain thickened,
thunder rolling low like a warning.
Inside, the café smelled of coffee and endings.
I reached for his hand, but he didn't move.
We sat there, two silhouettes behind fogged glass,
our silence louder than the storm.
And in that moment, I realized something I hadn't wanted to admit:
Marcus didn't have to destroy us.
We were already learning how to destroy ourselves.