~ANABEL'S POV~
I couldn't begin to fathom where I had wronged Damien's prized possession this time. The offense, whatever it was, sat heavy in my chest, unwritten yet already condemning. With Damien, there was always an unspoken rule—if Sophia was upset, someone else had to be to blame. And somehow, that someone always turned out to be me.
My phone vibrated sharply against the nightstand. I glanced at the screen and sighed before answering.
"You woke me up. What do you want?"
Sophia's voice cut through the line, cold and clipped, stripped of the softness she usually wrapped around her words. It was jarring, almost unsettling, how quickly her gentleness could harden when things didn't go her way.
"Damien promised we would get married," she continued without waiting for a response, each word carefully enunciated, heavy with accusation. "He said he would help me secure my position on the board."
I sat up slowly, pressing my fingers to my temple as if that might dull the sharp edge in her tone.
"And now," she went on, her composure thinning, "he suddenly insists on announcing our engagement cancellation."
There was a pause, brief, deliberate, long enough for the implication to sink in. I could almost hear her narrowing eyes through the phone.
"Don't tell me this isn't your doing?"
The question wasn't really a question. It was a verdict already reached, guilt assigned before any defense could be offered. I stared into the darkness of the room, my silence stretching, knowing that no matter what I said, the narrative had already been written. In her mind, I had crossed an invisible line again, tampered with what Damien considered his, disrupted what she believed was rightfully hers.
"After all these years," Sophia said slowly, her voice lowering as though she were speaking to a child, "do you really not understand how Damien feels about me?"
There it was, the familiar, deliberate cruelty wrapped in certainty. I stayed quiet, letting her words spill unchecked.
"No matter what you say to him," she continued, each syllable sharpened with confidence, "don't waste your efforts. He will never come back to you."
I almost laughed. The effort she accused me of making was something I had abandoned long ago. Whatever struggle she imagined, whatever competition she thought we were still locked in, existed only in her mind. If anything, I wished they would hurry up and get married already, end it, seal it, stop dragging their chaos across everyone else's lives. I swallowed the thought and said nothing, listening as Sophia pressed on, her voice gaining momentum.
"Instead of wasting time on this call," I scoffed, "why don't you hurry up and marry Damien?"
The irony was suffocating.
Then her tone shifted, turning razor-sharp, slicing straight through my chest. "What are you so smug about?" she snapped. "Damien and I will marry eventually. When that happens, we'll save a special seat for you." She paused, savoring the moment. "We've personally chosen you as our bridesmaid. Don't forget to attend."
Her words struck one after another, leaving no space to breathe, no room to retreat. Each sentence carried the same merciless certainty, pressing down on me until it felt impossible to stand upright beneath their weight.
"No matter how many times," she said at last, her voice stripped of all warmth, polished to something cold and unyielding, "Damien will always come to me."
There was no hesitation in her tone, no need to convince herself. It was spoken like an undeniable fact, something she believed the world itself had already accepted. I opened my mouth, unsure whether I meant to respond or simply inhale, but I never got the chance.
The call ended abruptly.
The sharp hum of the busy tone filled my ear, vibrating through me in a way her voice hadn't managed to do on its own. It was hollow, final, indifferent. I stayed frozen, phone pressed to the side of my face, as though the sound might change if I waited long enough. It didn't. Eventually, I lowered my hand and stared at the darkened screen, my reflection faint and unrecognizable against the glass.
The room seemed to exhale all at once, leaving behind a suffocating stillness. The silence wasn't peaceful; it was heavy, pressing against my chest, amplifying the echo of everything that had already been said. No footsteps, no voices, no distractions, just me and the truth that had been repeated so many times it no longer surprised me.
Slowly, my thoughts drifted back to the present, settling into place with a familiar ache. It wasn't sharp anymore. There was no fresh sting, no sudden burst of pain. It was dull, constant, something I had learned to carry without flinching. I didn't need Sophia's reminders. I had understood long before she ever felt the need to assert her victory.
I had learned it in the pauses Damien never filled.In the explanations that never came.In the countless moments where hope lingered just long enough to make its disappearance hurt.
No matter how many times the cycle repeated—no matter how often things seemed close to changing, no matter how many misunderstandings piled up, how many arguments ended unresolved, how many silences stretched on until they became unbearable—Damien would never turn back to look for me.
Not once.
Not ever.
That truth had settled into me over the years, carved slowly through endless waiting and unanswered expectations. Waiting led nowhere. Waiting that asked everything and gave nothing in return. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped questioning it. I had stopped hoping it would be different.
Understanding didn't come all at once. It arrived quietly, through repetition, through disappointment, through time. And by the time I finally grasped it fully, there was nothing left to fight against—only the hollow acceptance of a reality I had already lived for far too long.