Chapter 65:
The Door That Stayed Closed

Two days had passed since Harry had broken down in the hospital waiting room - since he'd shown up on her doorstep late that first night, eyes red and swollen, looking like a man who had finally run out of strength. Olivia's heart had ached for him then. She knew how terrified he was - Ethan was his whole world too. But these past two days, something else had shifted. Andrei had vanished into his own quiet grief, and she hadn't truly spoken to him since that evening he'd walked in and walked right back out again.

She'd come home alone again tonight, the apartment feeling strangely too quiet without his usual warm greeting echoing from the kitchen. She'd listened for his footsteps, waited to hear the jingle of his keys, but the hours had ticked by in silence. Finally, she found herself standing outside his closed door, her hand raised to knock again.

"Drei? Can we talk? Please open the door."

Knock after knock. Nothing. Only silence answering her.

"Andrei, I know you're hurting. I'm hurting too. Just... open the door. We don't have to fix anything. I just want to be here."

Still nothing. Her knuckles stung, the wood solid and unyielding against her skin. She stepped back, exhaling shakily, and that was when she remembered - he'd always kept a spare key tucked beneath the doormat, laughing and telling her it was "in case you lock yourself out chasing away stray cats."

She bent down, her fingers brushing against the cold metal, and unlocked the door.

The room was dark. She reached for the light switch, and as the soft glow filled the space, her breath caught. It was too quiet. Too still. Andrei was naturally messy - hoodies draped over chairs, books stacked unevenly on his nightstand, a pair of sneakers always kicked off near the door. But everything here was neat. Stripped back. Like someone had carefully, deliberately said goodbye.

She walked in slowly, her heart beginning a slow, uneasy rhythm against her ribs. His favorite hoodie wasn't hanging where it always was. The framed family photo on his nightstand - gone. Even the little polaroid of the two of them at the beach, the one she'd given him for Christmas with a silly scribble on the back - it wasn't there anymore. His DVDs. The football jersey he'd had since university. The mug she'd gotten him that said World's Okayest Cook. All gone.

"No," she whispered, stepping toward his closet, her legs feeling heavy. "He wouldn't just leave. Not without saying anything."

But when she slid the doors open, the emptiness hit her like a wave. The hangers stood mostly bare. The shirts she'd borrowed so many times during their late-night movie marathons - the oversized flannel, the grey sweater that smelled like his cologne - they weren't there anymore.

Olivia sank onto the edge of his neatly made bed, and the tears came - hot, sudden, and different from any tears she had ever cried before.

She knew what it felt like to cry over Harry. She had done it so many times before. Those tears were familiar - sharp, desperate, clinging to something that kept slipping through her fingers. Crying for Harry always felt like reaching into the dark for something she could no longer see, like mourning a memory that wouldn't come back. It was longing. It was the ache of wanting someone who was already halfway gone. It was heavy, yes - but there was also hope tangled in it. The quiet, stubborn belief that if she loved hard enough, waited long enough, he would turn around.

But these tears... they tasted different. There was no hope here. No what-if. No maybe-one-day. Just the hollow, aching realization that someone had loved her completely, steadily, patiently - and she had been too busy looking elsewhere to notice until it was too late. Crying for Harry had been about loss. Crying for Andrei was about regret. And she was learning the hardest way possible: loss hurts because someone's gone. Regret hurts because you know you were the one who let them walk away.

She wanted to be angry. She wanted to feel betrayed. But she couldn't. Because Andrei had never given her a reason to be anything but grateful. He had walked into her life when everything was falling apart, and he had stayed - patiently, gently, without fanfare - through every single time she'd chosen someone else over him. He had never demanded to be first. He had simply been there, steady as the tide.

Her fingers brushed against something tucked beneath his pillow - a stack of envelopes, tied together with a faded blue ribbon. Her name was written on the top one in his neat, familiar handwriting.

For Ker, it read.

Her hands trembled as she untied the ribbon and lifted the first one. Inside, the paper felt worn, like he'd written it and rewritten it several times.



"I'm not writing this because I want you to feel guilty. Please don't. You've done nothing wrong by loving him. The heart doesn't choose who it beats for - it just does. And yours belongs to Harry. I've known that from the day we met. I just hoped... maybe one day, your heart would make a little space for someone who was right in front of you all along."

She wiped at her eyes, the tears coming faster now. She opened the second one.



"They say if you have to fight for someone's attention, it's not worth having. But I wanted to be the exception to that rule for you. I wanted to be the person you didn't have to fight for - the one who was already there, no questions asked. But I've realized something lately: I can't wait my turn anymore, because you keep forgetting to look around and see that I'm standing here."



The third one made her chest ache so deeply it felt hard to breathe.



"Loving you has been the most beautiful thing I've ever known. And the most painful. Because every time I saw you reach for someone who couldn't reach back, a little part of me learned how to let go. I'm not leaving because I'm angry. I'm leaving because I deserve to be someone's first choice - and so do you. Just... I wish it could have been me."



The fourth one was shorter, quieter.



"Don't look for me. Don't feel bad. If I stayed any longer, I'd only end up resenting you - and I could never resent you. Not really. You'll be okay, Ker. You're stronger than you realize. Just... please, learn to choose yourself before you run out of people who are willing to catch you."



And the last one - folded carefully, as if he'd hesitated before sealing it.



"You'll find someone. Not someone like him - someone better. Someone who sees you walking through the door and thinks, 'There you are. You're home.' I wanted to be that person for you. But I can't be. And that's the hardest truth I've ever had to accept.

Thank you for letting me love you, even if it was only from the side. Take care of yourself. Be happy. You deserve it.

- Drei"



She folded the last letter carefully, pressing it against her chest, and for the first time in her life, she understood what heartbreak truly meant. It wasn't when someone left you. It was when someone loved you perfectly - and you realized you couldn't love them back in the same way, not because they weren't enough, but because you were still too busy chasing a shadow that had already faded.