AGAROS : The Love Betrayal

« It's not the disease that will kill me. It's the silence between us that does. »

Naël's Point of View

October 29, 2019 was dead.

The night had slowly unraveled, a veil torn apart by the timid light of dawn. But for me, the end of the night didn't mark a renewal. On the contrary, it brought with it a familiar, cold, piercing pain. A pain I knew had become mine. A hot blade, lodged deep in my bones, accompanied me relentlessly. It was part of me now. And that was what terrified me the most: I had become that pain.

I left my bed without hesitation, as if suffering was the only thing keeping me alive. The room was cold, and the chill swallowed me immediately, reminding me of this unbearable reality. My bare feet brushed the frozen floor, and every step sent a shiver through me, as though the pain wasn't just internal. It was everywhere. I was everywhere. The dimness wrapped around me, but I knew this room by heart. Every object, every corner, a shadow in a dark painting. I didn't even need to turn on the light. The darkness had become my accomplice.

I reached the bathroom, my mind as disordered as the air around me. I let the warm water surround me. It calmed me for a moment, but as soon as I pulled my arms from the shower, a cold draft rushed in, reminding me that comfort was fleeting. It was seven in the morning, but the light outside didn't even touch me. It warmed everything out there, but not me. I was nothing more than a suffering body, frozen in a time that wasn't mine.

I approached the bay window. My refuge, my outlet. From there, I could observe the world, the world that kept turning while I remained here, frozen. The mango tree stood before me, its branches swaying gently in the wind, stretching as if seeking an escape. I hated myself for envying them, but I did anyway. The freedom of the bird fluttering between the branches reminded me of my own inability to break free. A longing to fly away. To escape all of this.

A vibration startled me. A message. I knew what it was before I even looked. Whityou. I'd downloaded it in desperation, a last thread of hope for a connection, a bit of human warmth. But, as always, there was nothing behind it.

"Where do we meet?"

I sighed, this time without anger. Just resignation. The app had sold itself as a space for serious connections, but it had been a lie. The purity of its promises had evaporated in just a few weeks. The messages had become filthy waves that I couldn't avoid. Waves that drowned me. I wasn't angry anymore. What hurt was that I had let myself fall for it again. I had dreamed of finding someone who would love me for who I was, but each message shattered that dream. With every failure, I locked myself away a little more.

I dropped the phone on the couch by the bay window, unable to reply to this emptiness. But barely had I laid my eyes on the screen when another sound made me jump. A knock, slow and heavy. Then a second. Insistent.

I knew who it was. The way she knocked left no doubt.

I slowly straightened, took a deep breath, and waited. The door opened without ceremony.

— "How are you?" Her voice was dry, devoid of warmth. A noise of indifference, a palpable sense of discomfort as she turned her head, inspecting her nails as if I were an interruption in her world.

I didn't answer right away. I wanted to ignore her, to retreat into my silence. But it wouldn't change anything.

— "You don't care about this."

I said it firmly, coldly. There was nothing left to say. She knew just as well as I did that we were strangers under the same roof, sharing the same name but not the same life.

She rolled her eyes, that gesture so automatic, as if my mere existence were an inconvenience. She looked down at her phone again, her fingers gliding slowly over the screen. Then, suddenly, with a commanding tone, she broke the silence.

— "I think I'm done. I've endured enough for today!" She stood up quickly, her heels clacking on the floor like hammer blows, emphasizing her haste to flee. The air thickened. Every time she was here, the room seemed to shrink around me, to squeeze me tighter.

She headed toward the door, ready to escape, but a poison of resentment surged within me, burning my insides. I couldn't hold it back any longer.

— "I wish it had been you who was struck by this disease, and that you'd die!" The words came out suddenly, without a filter. Sharp, like the pain that tore through me.

She stopped, but didn't turn around. A long silence, an eternity of misunderstanding, then, in that cold voice, she responded:

— "And I'm relieved it's you she chose. This way, nature restores the balance broken by the past."

Her words hit harder than I had imagined. They lodged themselves in my heart, an insidious poison, an uncontrollable rage. But I no longer had the strength to fight her, to fight against the cold indifference she called motherhood.

She crossed the door without a glance back. I stayed there, frozen in the silence, in the same pain. The distant voices of my parents echoed vaguely, muffled. I knew what they were saying. My father, concerned, asking my mother if I was okay. But it didn't matter anymore. Those were empty words, sounds in a world that no longer belonged to me. There was nothing left to save here.

I let myself fall onto the couch, exhausted. A tear rolled down my cheek. I quickly brushed it away, not out of shame. That tear wasn't weakness. It was part of my struggle. My resistance against a world that was slipping away from me.

I was alone. But it didn't seem strange anymore. It was the only truth left to me.