SEBASTIAN’S POV
I stared at the photo again, my jaw tightening as conflicting emotions swirled inside me. The bright afternoon sun in the image burned as vividly in my chest as the growing suspicion I hated myself for feeling.
Sasha, smiling, too close to a man I didn’t recognize. Her body language wasn’t intimate, but the proximity and her apparent ease with him gnawed at my thoughts.
I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
But Roland’s report was unflinching in its clarity. Sasha hadn’t stayed at the hospital with her father the entire day as I had assumed. She had left early.
This picture proved it, timestamped for when the sun had been highest in the sky. That only left one question, what had she been doing, and who had she been doing it with?
My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white. I trusted Sasha,
or at least I had thought I did. But this? This situation left me spiraling.
My thoughts were a mess as I walked into the living room, where she was putting on her jacket.
She must have just returned home because her bag was still slung over her shoulder. She was heading for the main door again, though, clearly intending to leave.
“Sasha,” I said, my voice low but firm. She didn’t stop. “Sasha, wait.”
Still, she didn’t pause. My frustration simmered over. I strode after her, my longer legs quickly closing the gap.
“Where the hell are you going?” I asked sharply, my tone more demanding than I intended.
She froze in the doorway, her hand gripping the handle tightly. Slowly, she turned around to face me, her expression unreadable at first.
Then, her eyes met mine, and what I saw there knocked the air out of my lungs. Anger. Pure, unbridled anger.
“Where am I going?” she repeated, her tone cold. Her voice cut like a blade. “I’m leaving, Sebastian.”
Her words hit me harder than I expected. “Leaving? Why?”
Her nostrils flared as she glared at me. “You really have the nerve to ask me that?”
“Sasha, I just want to talk. If you’d just-”
“Talk?” she interrupted, her voice rising. “You don’t want to talk, Sebastian. You want to accuse. You want to demand answers you don’t deserve to question me about in the first place!”
I flinched at her tone, but my frustration spiked. “I just want to know where you’ve been. Roland said you left the hospital early, and then I got this.” I held up my phone, the image of her with the man still displayed.
“You want to tell me what this is, Sasha?”
Her eyes flicked to the screen, but she didn’t even flinch. Instead, her anger deepened. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I think I deserve an explanation,” I pressed. “You said you were with your father all day, and then I found out you weren’t. You’re with some guy instead”
That’s as far as I got. Her hand flew out before I even registered what was happening.
The sound of the slap echoed through the room, sharp and deafening. My head jerked to the side from the force, and for a moment, the sting of her palm on my cheek was the only thing I could feel.
“You deserve it?” she hissed, her voice trembling with barely contained fury. “You think you deserve an explanation from me, Sebastian? After everything I’ve put up with from you?”
I turned back to her slowly, my face burning from both the slap and the weight of her words.
“Sasha, I’m not trying to”
“Don’t you dare,” she cut me off, stepping closer. Her finger jabbed into my chest as her eyes burned into mine.
“Don’t you dare try to justify this. I have stuck by you through everything. Your secrets. Your dangerous work.”
” Your inability to let me in fully. All of it. And this is how you repay me? By distrusting me at the first opportunity?”
My throat tightened. “It’s not about distrust, Sasha. It’s about”
“Oh, it’s exactly about distrust!” she snapped.
“You don’t trust me. You never have, have you? Every time I try to prove myself to you, every time I think we’re finally in a good place, you do something like this. You find some reason to question me, to doubt me.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off again.
“I left the hospital early, yes,” she said, her voice sharp. “Because I needed a damn break, Sebastian. I needed a moment to breathe after spending hours in that room, hoping and praying my father would wake up.”
” I stepped out, and I ran into an old friend. A friend who asked if I was okay, offered to buy me coffee and let me vent for a few minutes.”
Her voice cracked slightly, but she held firm.
“And you know what?” she continued. “That’s all it was. A cup of coffee and a conversation. But instead of asking me about it, instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt, you assume the worst.”
“You go straight to accusing me of what? Cheating? Lying?”
“Sasha, I didn’t say”
“You didn’t have to!” she shouted. “It’s written all over your face. You don’t trust me, Sebastian. And you know what? I’m tired of it.”
” I’m tired of being the one who always has to prove herself while you keep me at arm’s length. I’m tired of dealing with your paranoia and your insecurities. I’m just… I’m tired.”
Her voice broke on the last word, and something inside me twisted painfully.
“Sasha, please,” I said softly, reaching for her.
She stepped back, out of my reach, shaking her head. “No. Don’t. Don’t touch me, don’t try to fix this with some empty apology. I can’t do this anymore, Sebastian.”
Her words were like a dagger to the chest. I opened my mouth to argue, to beg, to say something, anything, that would make her stay. But the look in her eyes stopped me.
She was done.
“You always ask for my loyalty, my trust,” she said, her voice quieter now but no less firm.
“But you don’t give me the same in return. I can’t keep fighting for a relationship where I’m the only one trying.”
I shook my head, my heart pounding. “That’s not true, Sasha. I love you. I’m trying”
“No, Sebastian,” she interrupted. “You don’t get to say that. Because if you really loved me, you wouldn’t keep hurting me like this.”
Her words left me speechless.
She turned back to the door, her shoulders stiff.
“Sasha, wait,” I said desperately. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t walk away.”
She paused, her hand on the door handle. For a moment, I thought she might turn back, that she might give me another chance.
Instead, she looked over her shoulder, her expression a mix of anger and heartbreak.
“I’m done, Sebastian,” she said quietly. “I’m done trying to fix this when you keep breaking it. I can’t do this anymore.”
And then she was gone, the door closing behind her with a finality that echoed in the silence.
I stood there, frozen, the weight of her words crushing me. I wanted to chase after her, to drag her back and make her see how much I needed her. But I couldn’t move.
All I could do was stare at the door, the sting of her slap still fresh on my cheek, and wonder if I had just lost the best thing that ever happened to me.