Chapter 58 - 0058: You Still Love Him?

Chapter 58: Chapter 0058: You Still Love Him?

Elena’s Point Of View

I let out a weak, pathetic little laugh, wiping my nose with the shredded napkin. "Because... because I snapped, Lexi. I went downstairs in my robe, unkempt, exhausted, my eyes swollen from another sleepless night. His mother called me a barren beggar. She said it so casually, like she was commenting on the weather, like the words cost her nothing at all. Lillian gave me this sickly sweet, pitying speech about how ’God will grant me a miracle child someday,’ rubbing her little bump right in my face. And Graham... Graham just sat there, sipping his black coffee like I was an insect being squashed on the rug. He didn’t even flinch."

Lexi’s jaw tightened so hard I heard her teeth click. "Go on."

"So I stood my ground. I told his mother off. I told Graham I wanted the divorce papers signed today, and he told me I was going to stay right under his thumb." I looked up, a small, wicked glint flashing through my grief.

"So when your call came through... I answered it. I twirled my hair. I purred into the phone. I talked about how much you spoil me, how divine your waffles are, and how I was going to end up completely addicted to you."

Lexi stared at me for three long seconds, her expression frozen somewhere between disbelief and delight, and then a slow, sinister, absolutely brilliant smirk spread across her face.

"You didn’t."

"I did," I admitted, a genuine grin tugging at my lips for the first time all day. "Lillian’s face completely drained of color. Matilda almost choked on her Earl Grey tea and started screaming about how I was having an affair under her precious son’s roof."

"And what did you say to that hag?!" Lexi asked, leaning in so close her nose was practically touching mine.

"I told her Graham set up the open marriage first," I said, my voice rising with a sudden surge of pride. "I told her he threatened me. And then... right before I walked out the door... I looked Graham dead in the eye and told them all that my new lover actually knows how to satisfy a woman."

Lexi threw her head back and let out a laugh so loud, so wildly triumphant, that half the café turned to look at us. She clapped her hands together, shaking her head in utter awe, her whole body practically vibrating with delight.

"Oh, my God! Elena! You terrifying, brilliant little bitch!" Lexi squealed, her eyes dancing with delight. "You gave that old monster a heart attack! Oh, I wish I could have seen Graham’s face! Was his jaw on the floor?! Tell me his jaw was on the floor!"

"He looked like he’d been shot," I laughed, the tension finally bursting out of me in a wave of hysterical, cleansing giggles. "He was speechless. Absolutely speechless."

"Good!" Lexi declared, slamming her hand down again, the sound rattling the little sugar packets in their ceramic holder. "Let him bleed! Let him suffer! Let him think some mysterious, drop-dead gorgeous billionaire is tearing you up every night while he’s stuck home eating cold pancakes with his mother and his side-chick!"

We laughed together for a long moment, the sound ringing through the cozy air of the café, burning away the toxic smog of the Sinclair estate. For a few precious seconds, I forgot the weight sitting on my chest entirely. But as the laughter slowly faded, the harsh reality of the morning settled back over my shoulders, heavy and cold, like a wet coat I couldn’t shrug off.

I sank back into my chair, my smile faltering. I looked down at my hands, tracing the faint tan line on my ring finger where my diamond band used to sit, the skin there paler than the rest, still marked by five years of a promise that had turned out to be hollow.

Lexi’s smile faded too. The fierce, comedic rage in her eyes softened into something deep, gentle, and infinitely sad. She reached out, gently wrapping her hand over mine, her thumb tracing small, soothing circles against my knuckles.

"I still don’t know what you ever saw in Graham," Lexi said quietly, her voice dropping into a soft, sincere cadence.

I gave a weak, trembling laugh, my throat constricting tightly. "Yeah... you always said that, didn’t you? Right from the start. You never really liked him."

Lexi looked at me, her dark brows pulling together with a tenderness that nearly undid my entire composure. "I never did. So tell me, Lena. Please... help me understand. Why him? What made you stay through five years of his coldness?"

My lips parted, but no sound came out for a long, heavy moment. Only silence stretched between us, filled only by the hum of the coffee machine in the background and the distant clatter of a spoon against porcelain somewhere behind the counter. And then, as if a dam inside my chest had finally broken under the weight of five years of silence, the memories came pouring out... raw, vivid, and painfully clear.

"I crushed on him for years, Lex," I whispered, forcing my gaze to stay locked onto the wooden grain of the table, unable to meet her eyes. "He was the golden boy back then. The untouchable one. You remember high school, don’t you? He was two years ahead of us. Senior class president. Captain of the soccer team. Everyone loved him. Teachers adored him. He walked through those hallways like he owned the entire sky."

Lexi let out a soft, nostalgic sigh, and for a moment her eyes seemed to drift somewhere far away, back to lockers and hallway chatter and a version of me she barely recognized anymore. "Yeah... I remember. You used to doodle his initials in the margins of your AP Chemistry notebook like an absolute lunatic."

I chuckled softly despite myself, a faint blush warming my cheeks. "God, yeah. I was utterly obsessed. He barely even knew I existed back then. I was just the quiet, clumsy art girl with paint smudges on her chin and hair held together by a paintbrush. But I used to sit by the library window during third period... just to watch him cross the quad."

I paused, my chest heaving with a shaky breath, the memory settling over me like a familiar, bittersweet weight.

"Then came college," I continued, my voice dipping lower, richer with memory. "I still remember the exact date. October 14th. The annual alumni homecoming gala. I was in my second year... still nerdy, still wearing thrifted dresses, barely knowing how to hold a conversation without stuttering."

Lexi’s lips twitched into a faint smile, the kind reserved only for memories shared between old friends. "And you came back to the dorm at two in the morning, screaming into a pillow like your soul had been elevated to another dimension."

A hot tear finally spilled over my eyelashes, tracing a wet path down my cheek. "He walked up to me, Lexi. Out of all those glamorous, wealthy girls in designer gowns... he walked right up to my corner, handed me a glass of champagne, and asked me my name. I thought it was a prank. I kept looking around for hidden cameras, waiting for the moment I’d wake up in my messy bed. But it wasn’t a joke. He really wanted me. At least... I made myself believe he did."

The playful grin on Lexi’s face completely vanished, replaced by a quiet, mournful stillness.

"I was the happiest girl on the planet," I whispered, my voice breaking over the syllables. "Or at least... I thought I was."

A soft morning breeze stirred through the cracked window beside our booth, rustling the edge of the laminated menu, brushing gently past my bare neck. I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself, suddenly small in a way I hadn’t felt in years.

"I loved him from the moment he smiled at me in that library quad, Lexi. I loved him when he was building his first startup out of a cramped garage. And somehow, even after the humiliation, even after he brought another woman into our bed... God help me, a pathetic part of me still does."

Lexi leaned back slowly, her eyes scanning my face with a chaotic storm of emotions - disbelief, pity, heartbreak, and a fiery, protective agony that seemed to burn just beneath the surface, threatening to spill over into something fiercer.

"You still love him?" she asked softly, as if handling fragile glass.

I nodded, biting my lower lip until I tasted copper. "Yeah. I know it’s pathetic. I know it makes me look weak. After all the lies, the cold shoulder, making me feel like a barren failure... proposing that sick, twisted joke of an open marriage just because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped..."

I clenched my hands into tight fists, my short nails digging so deeply into my palms that the physical sting served as an anchor against the emotional wave threatening to drown me.

"I still catch myself lying in that cold guest room, hoping he’ll open the door," I admitted, the ugly, shameful truth spilling out. "Hoping he’ll look at me the way he did on campus ten years ago. Like I was his entire world."

Lexi stared at me for a long time, something unreadable passing behind her eyes. Then, she reached across the table, grabbed my chin gently between her fingers, and forced me to look straight into her eyes.

"Lena... listen to me," Lexi said, her voice dropping into a low, fiercely steady register. "The man you are holding onto? The man you love? He never existed."

The words hit me like an ice-water bath. Clean. Brutal. Unforgiving.

"He gave you crumbs," Lexi continued, her eyes burning into mine. "He gave you tiny, bite-sized pieces of attention, and you used your brilliant, beautiful mind to build an entire wedding cake out of them. You loved the fantasy you created. The boy who brought you champagne. The man who held your hand at dinners. But that was a mask, Lena! Real love does not publicly execute your dignity. Real love does not replace you the second things get hard. Real love does not leave you sleeping in the guest room while another woman wears your ring!"

I swallowed down the massive lump in my throat, my vision blurring with tears. "I know... I know all of that, Lex. But how do you just turn off ten years of devotion? How do you tear out a heart that spent a decade beating for someone else?"

Lexi let go of my chin, reaching down to squeeze both of my trembling hands in hers, her grip firm and unwavering, as though she could physically hold me together through sheer will alone.

"You don’t turn it off overnight," she whispered gently, her thumb wiping away the tears streaming down my cheeks. "You’re not weak, Elena. You’re just human. You loved deeply, honestly, and without holding anything back. That’s not your shame... that’s his loss. But loving him isn’t the crime here, Lena. The crime is staying in that house and letting him slowly destroy every remaining piece of the girl who used to paint the world."

I nodded slowly, feeling the heavy, undeniable truth of her words sink deep into my ribs, settling there like solid granite, immovable and real.

We sat in silence for a long moment, the warmth of her hands anchoring me against the storm still raging quietly beneath my skin.

Then, Lexi sat back, pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser, handed it to me, and gave me her classic, crooked, irreverent grin, the one that had talked me off more ledges than I could count over the years.

"Still, though..." Lexi smirked, shaking her head. "I really, really, really don’t know what the hell you ever saw in that spineless bastard."

A wet, shaky laugh burst out of my chest. I wiped my eyes furiously with the napkin, blowing my nose with absolute disregard for elegance, my shoulders shaking as genuine, lighthearted warmth returned to my blood.

"Neither do I, Lex," I laughed, my voice steadying, clear and resolute for the first time in months. "Neither do I anymore."