The gentle trickle of water from the bathtub felt soothing, as if it could muffle the echo of this morning's turmoil. Nayla lay submerged in a sea of frothy bubbles, the scent of soap lingering on her damp skin. A sheer curtain at the window blocked out the daylight, softly concealing a wound that bled only in her heart.
The bathroom door opened. Damian stood in the threshold. His face was clean, his appearance neatly restored, yet his eyes still harbored an unquenchable spark.
"I have to go," he finally said.
Nayla kept her eyes closed, fingers pinching a corner of soap until suds tumbled to the floor. "Of course. Go."
Damian didn't move. His body was taut, drawn like a bowstring ready to snap. His fists clenched at his sides, as if holding back the urge to move, to pull Nayla out of that tub, to hold her, to make sure she was still breathing.
"Nay."
He took a single step forward—then stopped. He parted the curtain with a fingertip, but Nayla remained unmoved. She didn't lift her head. She didn't open her eyes. She gave him nothing.
"Nayla," Damian repeated, his voice lower, weighted with something dangerously close to breaking.
His words hovered in the air for a moment, then fell into the silence like stones into a bottomless well. The stillness was even louder than the soft fizz of the dying foam. It was bitter. A kind of quiet that screamed louder than any cry.
Damian scrubbed his face once, a harsh, frustrated motion. He wanted Nayla to say something. To scream, to curse him, to tell him to go to hell, anything but this aching silence. But she gave him nothing.
Reflexively, his steps brought him closer to the tub. His hand lifted unconsciously, hovering above Nayla's wet hair. Almost touching.
Almost.
The tips of his fingers trembled in the air, caught between longing and restraint, desperate to reach something that already felt too far gone. Yet in the end, Damian withdrew his hand. In that silence, all he could feel was the loss of something he never truly had.
"If I stay..." He stopped, his voice cracking in the stillness. "I'll want more than I should."
Nayla's breathing remained steady and slow. It was as if she had deafened herself, as if she had already closed the door to the world — including to him.
Damian watched her one last time, memorizing the sharp line of her jaw, the delicate slope of her bare shoulders under the foam, and the invisible wounds she carried.
He retreated slowly, each step away carving a deeper wound into his own spine.
At the doorway, he paused, eyes closed tight against the pressure building in his chest. And without another word, he turned and walked away.
He shut the bathroom door softly behind him, refusing to allow even the faintest click that might remind either of them how far apart they'd grown. His heart ached too deeply for that sound.
His back found the cold corridor wall. For a moment, he let his eyes fall shut, struggling to breathe, struggling to stay upright.
Until the memories attacked — relentless and cruel.
Milan, when he was still in his twenties.
Damian had never been one for pleasantries. His visits to Adrian's apartment were like a silent shadow slipping through a door. No greetings, no laughter. Silent, unannounced.
One afternoon, as he stepped through the door, the scent of baking wafted through the air. But for Damian, it wasn't a warm invitation. It was a signal that Nayla was here.
Every time he saw her, a slick heat snaked through his chest. A dark longing he'd never dared admit, even to himself.
Leaning against the kitchen doorframe, he found her. Hair loosely tied, a smudge of flour dusting her temple. Her face was bare of artifice, and yet to Damian, she was always dangerous. Always inviting.
"Damian." Nayla's voice cut through the stillness.
He merely nodded. He never bit his lip or looked away. Instead, his habit was to lock his gaze with hers — too deeply. In the silence between them, a pulse beat hard against his ribs. He knew, more than he cared to admit, that this feeling was far beyond simple admiration.
Rather than seize the moment and speak, he crossed to the living room. And, true to sisterly affection, Nayla often presented a plate of her homemade pastries as though it were her signature welcome.
"Try this," she said, holding out a plate.
Damian took a piece wordlessly, only to set it back down without tasting it. To him, all things sweet were poison. Including Nayla's smile, which melted and tore at him in equal measure.
Days passed in the same rhythm. Damian arrived, silently watching from a distance. Sometimes he lingered outside the balcony window, watching Nayla and Adrian laugh in the golden twilight.
He never smiled along. Behind his frozen expression, he collected every curve of her laughter. He hoarded each curve of her laughter as if it were his most precious secret — one he would never reveal.
Night after night, his heart expanded painfully. He memorized the pitch of her voice, the sparkle of her laughter bouncing off the ceilings, and the shy bend of her smile.
He nearly confessed the terrifying truth.
Almost.
Until the news came.
One not-too-bright morning, Adrian called him on the phone. Nayla was engaged.
Damian stopped breathing for a moment. On the other side of the line, he could already picture Nayla's radiant smile. The smile he had claimed silently. The smile that should have been his. The smile that now belonged to someone else.
Without thinking, he went to Adrian's apartment. He greeted them curtly, blending into the soft jazz playing overhead. Under the golden light, Nayla looked at him, eyes warm.
"Damian, I have something to tell you."
He braced himself, eyes probing.
"Nathan," she said, her voice bright with happiness.
In that heartbeat, his world fractured. The fortress of longing he'd built in his heart crumbled to dust. His soul screamed, but only this cold void emerged on his lips.
Without a word, he smiled faintly. A smile laced with the deadliest poison. Then he turned away, leaving as if he had never been there.
From that night on, Damian carried a feeling that refused to die. A dark fire that smoldered quietly, waiting for the right moment to ignite once again.
And somehow, it all led back to tonight.
"She was mine once, in silence," Damian whispered, staring into the empty hallway. "And now, I've destroyed it all."
***
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