Chapter 3: The Cold Shadows of Betrayal
I. The Shifting Tides
The transition from heaven to hell didn't happen in a single day; it was a slow, agonizing burn. The golden summer we shared began to fade, replaced by a cold, biting autumn of silence. The man who once claimed he couldn't breathe without hearing my voice now found my calls irritating. My phone, which used to be a source of constant joy, became a source of anxiety. I would wait for hours for a simple "Good night" or "How are you?" only to be met with "I'm busy" or "Don't disturb me right now."
I started feeling like a ghost in his life. The word "Koliza" was no longer whispered with love; it was said with a tone of obligation, or sometimes, it wasn't said at all. Whenever I asked him why he was distancing himself, he would turn it against me. He called me "crazy," "possessive," and "insecure." He made me feel like I was the problem, while I was only trying to save the love I had sacrificed everything for. I was drowning in a sea of confusion, holding onto the memories of the man I thought he was, unaware that he was already drifting toward another shore.
II. The Entry of Sanjida
And then, like a poison spreading through my veins, a new name started echoing in the silence between us—Sanjida. At first, she was just a "friend," a name mentioned in passing. But a woman's intuition is never wrong. I felt the atmosphere change whenever her name came up. He started hiding his phone, changing his passwords, and smiling at his screen in a way he used to smile at me.
The first time I saw them together on social media, my world literally stopped spinning. There they were—laughing, sharing inside jokes, and looking into each other's eyes. He was wearing the shirt I had chosen for him, the one he said made him feel like a king. But he wasn't my king anymore; he was a stranger. Seeing him display her so proudly to the world, while he had always kept me hidden like a shameful secret, felt like a thousand knives piercing my soul at once. My heart didn't just break; it shattered into a million jagged pieces that cut me from the inside.