Page 167 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

Part of me hoped he wouldn’t come down because maybe that meant there was still something left to save. And another part prayed he would because I couldn’t survive uncertainty anymore.

Then finally, the doors opened.

Victor stepped out in a simple white V-neck t-shirt.

And my heart broke a little even nobody spoke, because he still looked guarded. Distant.

He had already built walls I no longer could climb.

He stopped a few feet away from me.

Neither of us moved closer.

I swallowed hard.

“Have you decided?” I asked, a little demand in my tone.

Victor exhaled quietly, glancing away for half a second before looking back at me.

“No,” he said carefully. “I still have⁠—”

But I cut in. “At this point, we’re just playing the long goodbye.”

Silence.

I looked at him fully then, forcing myself to ask the question I had been terrified of since this started.

“So let me ask you directly,” I said, my voice soft but certain. “We’re never going back to the way we were before… are we?”

The pause that followed nearly destroyed me.

Because I watched it happen in real time—the hesitation, the guilt, the truth settling into his face before he even said it.

Then quietly—almost gently—Victor replied, “I’m sorry. Not anymore.”

Not anymore.

Two words.

How cruel.

That was all it took to end an entire future I had built inside my head.

I nodded once. Bitterly. Not because I was okay nor I accepted it, but because my body didn’t know what else to do while my heart was breaking open inside my chest.

For a second, I just stood there looking at him.

The person I loved the most in the world.

The person I would’ve stayed for.

The person I kept hoping would choose me back.

And he didn’t.

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I forced myself to breathe through it.

Then slowly—before I could change my mind—I stepped back.