Charlize immediately got to the heart of the matter. Hugo's sadness and pain—what were they really about? Was it the end of this relationship, Uma's refusal to fight for it, or the fact that Hugo's trust had gone unreciprocated?
Hugo froze in place, feeling a chill run through him. He shivered. "Maybe all of it," he said softly.
Perhaps, at the very beginning, when he learned that Uma had become the lead in The Firm, Hugo first felt betrayed. Joseph had warned him, Charlize had hinted, yet he hadn't paid attention—he had chosen to trust Uma. And when he realized that his trust had been one-sided, the first feeling that struck him was betrayal. He had given Uma a chance to explain, but by doing so, had he also chosen to ignore the possibility that his trust might have been meaningless?
Yet when Uma gave up the chance to defend herself, when she gave up the chance to fight for their relationship, Hugo's emotions became something even he couldn't clearly define. In that instant, he even began to question the authenticity of his own feelings. Could the past few months have been nothing but an illusion?
There had been moments when Hugo recalled Anthony's comments about Uma—was she really using him, treating him as a stepping stone for her career? He immediately rejected the thought, remembering that when they had been together before Scent of a Woman was released, no one had paid attention to Hugo, so there could be no stepping stone. Yet then doubt crept back in. Their real dating had arguably begun at the premiere of A Few Good Men, and maybe from that moment, Uma had started planning…
Once trust begins to fracture, every detail is questioned; even what was once insignificant can become a seed of suspicion.
Hugo had to stop his spiraling thoughts, yet he found himself doubting the reality of their relationship. So he drifted in and out of sleep from morning until midnight. He never truly rested; the half-sleep, half-wake struggle left him tormented, mentally exhausted to the point of near collapse.
Trust is never easy, and betrayal is especially cruel—because once it exists, its breach can feel like the collapse of your entire world. Hugo was living that experience now, unable even to assess the emotions he had once felt.
Charlize watched the fragility on his face—a fragility that seemed as if it could shatter at a single touch. Moonlight cast faint, trembling shadows across him. Instinctively, Charlize reached out her fingers to touch the projection on the floor but recoiled in fear, as if the shadow might collapse like a sandcastle at the slightest contact.
"But…" Hugo remained silent for a long moment. His hoarse voice broke the quiet of the moonlit room, sending ripples through the stillness that made Charlize shiver. "Does the reason really matter? Human emotions are complex, impossible to neatly categorize. Whatever the cause, the result is crystal clear—she left the keys, and didn't even give me a chance."
Uma had left decisively. She hadn't tried to hold onto the relationship and had denied Hugo the opportunity to fight for it. The result was merciless. Even Charlize found herself questioning whether this relationship had ever truly existed.
"Maybe I just like her now, maybe deep down I love her. I… I just need some time, to approach her step by step. I'm trying, and maybe… she is too. It's just…" Hugo's words became jumbled, chaotic. "Maybe her choice to give up wasn't because she didn't want to fight—it's like she said, between love and career, she chose the latter. Or maybe it's not that she didn't trust me, it's that at the time, she had too few options…"
After a long string of words, Hugo finally trailed off in exhaustion. "But… why didn't she explain?" All of this was Hugo's speculation; he had no clue what Uma truly thought. He had given her the chance to explain, but she had refused. Any relationship is hard to sustain without communication—there's no doubt about that.
"Maybe she didn't want to explain because she didn't want to continue," Charlize said, meeting Hugo's vacant gaze. Her words made the tension in his shoulders finally release. That, she realized, was the root cause. Hugo had known all along. That's why even he—someone who rarely gave up—didn't resist when Uma left. It wasn't that he didn't care; he had simply recognized her true intention: she didn't want to continue.
When Uma placed the keys in the glass bowl, the crisp sound might have been the final punctuation to their relationship.
Hugo lowered his eyelids in defeat. "I just need a little time to figure things out… a little time."
He didn't specify what he needed to figure out—maybe what had really happened, maybe the depth of his feelings for Uma, or maybe how to move forward from this impasse. Charlize knew that right now, Hugo was incapable of normal thought; the fracture of trust had left him battered and unable to reason.
She fell silent, unsure what else to say. As a friend, she had said all she could. The rest depended on Hugo himself. Being there for him during this time was perhaps all she could do.
"So… do you want a drink?" Charlize changed the subject, trying to sound casual. "There's still plenty of beer in the fridge, and I think there's a bottle of red wine in the cabinet."
Hugo exhaled deeply, closing his eyes, and massaged his temples again. "A beer would be great… thanks." His head ached, and his knee seemed to be throbbing again—damn this weather.
Until now, Hugo had been grateful to be in Los Angeles, where the climate was dry and rainfall was sparse, with snow being extremely rare. Rain was mostly concentrated in the winter months, and typically his knees had no trouble at all. But tonight, the pain in his knee drained all his energy, leaving him almost devoid of the strength to even feel sorrow.
Charlize brought over two beers, handing one to Hugo before resuming her seat on the sofa. She noticed several sheets of paper scattered across the table, filled with pencil-written text. Pointing to them, she asked, "What's this? Can I take a look?"
Hugo took a sip of his beer, shrugged nonchalantly, and closed his eyes. He felt exhausted, drained, and utterly fatigued, yet sleep eluded him. His eyes ached, but no matter how tired he was, he couldn't enter the realm of dreams. He didn't know whether it was the lingering effects of his half-sleep from earlier or the constant pain in his knee and head that kept his nerves on edge.
Charlize picked up the papers and realized they were receipts from the supermarket. On the back of one, Hugo had scribbled a passage—part diary, part poem but Charlize suspected it was actually song lyrics.
"The wandering soul that departs leaves traces of perfume on the pillow. In a room without a single ray of light, I cannot sleep… When you are near me, when you are here, I rediscover myself and find who I am."
The sorrow and grief leapt from the lines. Charlize glanced at Hugo, who remained with his eyes closed, massaging his temples. Looking closer at the lyrics, she noticed that he wrote "when you are near me" using near, indicating proximity rather than closeness or intimacy. This single word choice revealed the subtlety of his emotions—Hugo didn't require her to be emotionally close, merely physically near, and that was enough.
Even more telling, Hugo used the present tense in "when you are near me," not the past tense. This meant he wasn't nostalgically mourning a past love; he was calling out, hoping for a response.
Hugo wasn't commemorating a love lost; he was calling for Uma.
The realization hit Charlize like a blow. Perhaps, deep down, Hugo's sorrow wasn't about Uma's betrayal or the end of the relationship. It was about her giving up. No struggle, no loud fights, no desperate explanations—she simply let go. This act of surrender made it impossible for Hugo to trust Uma's feelings for him, impossible to believe the reality of their shared past, and even made him question whether his trust had ever mattered at all.
Charlize instinctively closed her eyes and lowered her head, afraid he might see her own vulnerability. Only now did she truly understand the depth of Hugo's pain. His pale, weakened exterior concealed the torment and internal struggle, perhaps leaving him bleeding and scarred inside, yet entirely beyond healing.
She opened her eyes again, looking at Hugo with his eyes still closed. He seemed asleep, motionless, allowing her to study him in detail.
In truth, Charlize had never looked at him closely before. At a glance, she knew he was a handsome man, whose aura surpassed mere facial features. Yet in examining him more carefully, she noticed the subtle brushstrokes of his brows, delicate as if painted in traditional ink wash. Under the moonlight, they extended gently and vulnerably, like an ancient watercolor.
Those slightly furrowed brows begged to be smoothed away, as if telling him everything would be alright.
Suddenly, Hugo's eyes opened. His clear amber gaze met Charlize's directly. Those eyes, like mist over a mountain lake at dawn, seemed to drop a droplet of ink into clear water, sending ripples across its surface. Flustered, Charlize quickly looked away, her heart pounding so violently she felt as if she might suffocate.
...
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