You've gone numb to the threat of exposure. That's why your phone ends up in Matteo's hands, the moment as careless and brutal as the months leading up to it. You step out of the shower and walk right into your own betrayal. He stands there with the evidence, so blatant and so real. The look on his face is more than hurt. It's annihilation. You watch him watch you, feeling more naked than you ever did with your clothes off. You'd wanted this to happen, in a way, but now that it has, you don't know how to face him.
A silence as fragile as glass stretches between you. You think it will shatter at any second. That's how raw it feels. How immediate and cutting.
"Y/N," he finally says, your name a broken sound in his mouth.
"What are you doing?" You know how it sounds. As if he's the one at fault. You want to take it back, but it's too late.
He turns the phone around, the texts blazing from the screen. You and Harry, more intimate than you ever intended anyone else to see.
"I should be asking you that." His voice is low and trembles with betrayal. He searches your face, hoping for something to make this all untrue.
Your hair is still dripping, your body wrapped in a towel and unready, vulnerable. But not as vulnerable as Matteo. His look is pure devastation and fury as he stares at your phone, as he absorbs the texts you left for him to find. As he looks up at you, accusation and confusion on his face.
"Matteo, it's not—"
"Not what it looks like?" He's laughing. You can't believe he's laughing.
"Not what you think," you say, meaning it. Meaning how different this feels from what you thought it would. Meaning how wrong it is, how reckless. You meant for him to know, but not like this. Never like this.
"I'm sorry," he says, but he's not apologising. He's calling you sorry, calling you out. "He's your boss. You're fucking him."
You're silent.
"That's what you think?" you finally manage to say.
"That's what I know."
His face is breaking, shattering, and you can't stop it, can't bear it, can't look away. There's no hiding anymore, no excuse to shield him from the truth. He's found it, just like you wanted. He's found it, and you're the one who's unready, unprepared. He's found it, and you hate how right he is. You're tired of hiding. You're tired of pretending. You're tired.
"Don't I get an answer?" he says. "Don't I deserve one?"
"It's not like that," you say, but you know it doesn't matter. He's seen the texts. He knows what it's like.
"So I'm just making it all up?"
"You weren't supposed to find out this way."
His voice cracks. "How, then? How was I supposed to find out?"
It's worse than you expected, the truth. More devastating, more real. More permanent. His mouth moves, forming words you thought you'd wanted to hear for months, words you didn't expect to cut like glass. "You and me," he says, like he's remembering, like he's mourning, "it's over, isn't it?"
"Yes."
He looks up at you, his eyes so full of disbelief and devastation and disbelief again.
He's quiet. Too quiet. Then not quiet enough. "She messaged me," he finally says. "Olivia. Does that name mean anything to you?"
Harry's wife. You didn't know her name. He never told you, and you didn't ask.
You can't tell him she's wrong. Not Olivia. Not Harry. Not Matteo. None of them. Not even yourself. You want to tell him you're sorry. You want to say something, anything, but the words die on your lips, smothered by his expression. How do you explain to someone that you never meant to hurt them like this?
He waits for you to try.
"Matteo, I—"
"I love you, Y/N. You know that, right?"
His words are like a bomb going off. "I know," you say, wishing you didn't.
"So why are you doing this?"
"It just happened."
He shakes his head. "How long?"
"A while."
His eyes are glass. You want to reach out, touch him, comfort him, but you can't. You can't. You want to tell him the truth, the lie, everything, anything, but you don't. You don't.
"A year after I started," you say, finally. "Something like that."
"And you don't even care." He's staring at you like you're someone he doesn't know. Someone he never did.
You wish you could disagree. You don't know how. "I never meant—"
"You're my whole world, Y/N. Even though you've made me feel like nothing."
It's worse than you thought, the breakup. More violent, more gentle. More cutting. You were reckless on purpose, but now that the moment is here, you wish you could take it all back. You didn't think he'd be so devastated. You didn't think he'd care so much, so loudly, so angrily. You didn't think he'd walk out. You thought you'd have to push harder, thought he'd stay and wait and forgive you. You never meant to hurt him this much. You never wanted it to be this ugly.
But here it is, ugliness laid bare, raw and open and gaping between you. It's all out in the open now. Just like you wanted. Just like you didn't want at all.
It doesn't make sense. How it happened, why it happened. Why it was inevitable, why you couldn't see it. How quickly, how easily it's over. You're so done.
"Say something," he pleads, his eyes desperate, wild with a hope you can't give him.
You open your mouth but can't find any words. You stand there dripping water onto the carpet, everything about you unveiled. "Matteo, I—" You pause, shaking your head. You've been careless, but you've never meant to be cruel.
He looks at you like he wants to believe it. Like he could believe anything you tell him right now.
With a heavy heart, he takes a breath. "It was a while ago," he says, his voice cracking on the last word. "I told her it couldn't have been you he was sleeping with. I didn't want to believe it."
A cold rush of realisation hits you. So that's why. You've been pushing him for so long, not knowing why he held on. Not knowing what he already knew.
You take a step toward him, reaching out. "Matteo, I'm—"
He flinches, pulls back, your phone clutched tight in his hands. "Don't. Just don't." It's the closest thing to anger you've heard from him, but it only sounds sad. So very, very sad.
His face crumples as he tries to make sense of it all. As he tries to find a way through. He fails.
"You were it for me, Y/N," he says, each word trembling with emotion. "I've never asked anything of you but for you to love me."
He waits for you to deny it. To tell him he's wrong. But you don't.
Tears shine in his eyes. They don't fall. "Do you love him?"
The question stabs into you, sharp and sudden. You feel it lodging deep, and you know it's one more thing you'll never be able to take back. You say nothing, and that tells him all he needs to know. He closes his eyes, unable to look at you.
"I never thought you could do this," he says, so softly you almost don't hear it. "I never thought you could do this to me."
You see the world you shared unraveling in front of you, every thread pulling away from him until nothing's left. It's everything you knew would happen. Everything you were afraid to see.
"I hope you're happy with Harry," he adds, bitter and heartbroken. "Just remember, you lose them how you find them."
With a final, anguished look, Matteo thrusts the phone back at you and storms out of the flat. The door slams so hard you think it might shatter.
His absence fills the room, crowding in on you with all the memories you've tried to ignore. His anger is a ghost that refuses to leave. It's not like you thought it would be. A part of you is relieved it's over, relieved that you don't have to pretend anymore. A part of you is shattered by how painful it turned out to be. How raw and exposed it left you. Without shedding a single tear, you reach for your phone. It's like you're watching yourself from a distance, listening to your own voice speak into the silence.
You always imagined a different ending. You're not sure what, but certainly different. A quiet goodbye. A chance for closure. But this feels like it was torn away, and you don't know how to mourn something that ended this way.
You move through the flat like it belongs to someone else, like you've stepped into a stranger's life and can't quite find your way back out. You've wanted this, you tell yourself. You've wanted to be free. But now that you are, you don't know what to do with it. With yourself. It feels more like a loss than a relief, but even that doesn't feel real. None of it does.
This is what you were afraid of. What you didn't want to admit. Now it's here, and it's left you so numb you don't even know where to begin putting yourself back together.
You always thought you'd cry. You thought you'd break down and let it all out. But you don't. You stand in the kitchen and let the hours drift by, the phone still clutched in your hand like you're supposed to be doing something with it. When you finally dial his number, you're surprised by the steadiness in your own voice. It's like you're discussing the weather, like it's someone else's life you're reporting.
"Hello?"
Your voice sounds detached, cold, as hollow as the quiet room. "It's over," you say. "It's over between me and Matteo."
There's a pause, longer than you expect. "Y/N," Harry says. It's not a question, not a reprimand, but it feels like both. He always sees right through you.
"He knows everything." You keep your tone even, light. "You don't sound very surprised."
"I'm not," Harry says. "Isn't this what you wanted? What did you expect?" You almost flinch at the way he says it, at how transparent you are to him.
It doesn't make sense. How it happened, why it happened. You're standing there, alone and uncertain, and it's worse than you thought.
"Your wife's name is Olivia?" you say, as if that explains anything.
"Ex-wife."
"Your ex-wife." The words come out small, crushed, bitter. You don't know why. The divorce was finalised a month ago. "She told him."
There's a long silence. "Y/N—"
"You should have told me she'd do something like that," you say. You almost feel embarrassed, childish, like the girl Harry's finally been able to make his.
"I had no idea she'd try contacting him." Harry says, soft, disarming. He knows just how to reach you, just how to diffuse you. "I'm so sorry, Y/N. Really, I had no idea."
A pause, heavy. Then, "You okay?"
Not an accusation. Not even a real question. Not from Harry.
There's a creak as you sit on the edge of the couch, the furniture settling under you. You're the one who's unsettled. "I never wanted it to be this ugly," you say. "I didn't want him to find out like this."
"You didn't answer my question."
You almost forget the question, your mind too tangled up in the aftermath of Matteo and your sudden, stinging relief about Olivia. "I'm fine," you say. You want him to believe it. You don't even know if you believe it. "Like you said. It's what I wanted."
"Wanted it to be so painful?"
You smile, even though you know he can't see it. "Wanted it to be over."
He doesn't respond right away.
"Isn't that what you wanted, too?" you finally ask.
"I want you to be okay."
A part of you bristles at this, at how he's always more mature than you. At how he won't just take yes for an answer, at how he won't just be satisfied that you're his now, really his. "Well, I am," you say.
You let a silence fall, then another, then a longer one, and you wonder what he's thinking, what you're thinking, how it all feels so removed, so slow, so unbelievable.
"Meet me at the river tonight," Harry says, finally.
It's an invitation. It's a lifeline. It's a fresh start.
"When it's dark?" you say, already knowing the answer.
"Yes."
There's something familiar and new in the way he says it, something like hope. It makes your heart seize up, then skip, then quicken in your chest, like this is real, like it's happening, like it's everything you wanted it to be.
It is.
You promise to be there, you promise to be his, and as you hang up the phone, you promise yourself that it won't hurt this time, not like it did with Matteo, not like it did before.