(Alright, I know, I make you irritated, annoyed, sad but today I am gonna make you cry đ, yes I will make you, I know , most of you want happiness, but this is my story, I am writing this , I am writing an emotional story, you need to feel these emotions, I am not saying that they will never be happy, but now they are at their lowest and when happiness will come, I promise, this is the last time I am making them sad , they'll be sad for some upcoming chapters too but when happiness will finally come, I promise I will fill their whole life with happiness, happiness, happiness everywhere, so just trust the process and have patience. â¤ď¸)
Keifer sat in the darkness of his room, his head in his hands.
Her wordsâ"This marriage is just a deal"âkept playing over and over in his mind like a broken record.
It felt like a knife twisting in his chest. He had spent years closing himself off, convinced he would never believe in love again.
And then Jay happened. She was the first girl he had truly opened his heart to, and now, she was the one shattering it.
Across the hall, behind her locked door, Jay was curled into a ball on her bed. She wasn't crying; she was beyond tears.
She was dying inside. Watching the light go out of Keifer's eyes was the hardest thing she had ever done.
He was the first person to ever truly love her for who she was, yet here she was, using her own hands to push him away. She felt like a monster, but in her head, this was the only way to protect him from the darkness she carried.
The next morning, the tension was thick. Keifer was a messâangry, silent, and on the verge of breaking.
"Keifer, stop pacing," Sophia said, grabbing his arm as he moved restlessly through the living room. "I know you're hurt. But listen to me. Tomorrow is Jay's birthday."
Keifer froze. A birthday. A chance.
Despite everything she had said, a tiny spark of hope flickered in his chest.
Maybe if he showed her he wasn't going anywhere, she would stop running. He decided he would try one last time. He would give her everything.
But not everyone wanted a happy ending.
Cheska saw Keifer sitting alone on the terrace later that afternoon.
She smirked, walking up to him with her phone in hand. "Still moping over her, Keifer? Maybe this will help you move on."
She slid a photo across the table. It showed Jay standing close to a boy. "She's cheating on you. That's why she's always 'busy' at the office."
Keifer didn't even flinch. He didn't even look at the photo for more than a second before sliding it back.
"Get out, Cheska."
"Did you hear me? She's with someone else!"
"I trust her," Keifer snapped, his voice cold and terrifying. "Jay might be pushing me away, she might be lying about her feelings, but she would never betray a promise. If you ever try to pull a stunt like this again, you're leaving this house for good. Now, get out."
Cheska stormed off, fuming, but Keifer didn't care. He had work to do.
The next day, Keifer and Sophia went into full gear.
They decorated the house with Jay's favorite flowers, bought the most thoughtful gifts, and Keifer personally oversaw the preparation of a cake.
He was determined. He was going to break through her wall tonight, no matter what.
But for Jay, the sun rising on this day was a nightmare.
For everyone else, a birthday is a celebration. For Jay, it was the anniversary of the day she lost everything.
It was the day the "dark" finally ate her alive, the day her world had crumbled years ago. The pain was so physical it made her feel sick.
She couldn't go home. She couldn't let Keifer and Sophia see her like thisâhollowed out and broken.
She couldn't wear the mask of "sunshine Jay" today.
She stayed at the office. She worked through lunch. She worked through dinner. She didn't eat; she didn't drink.
She buried herself in files until her vision blurred and her fingers shook from exhaustion.
She pushed her body to the breaking point, hoping the physical exhaustion would drown out the screaming pain in her heart.
While Keifer sat at home, lighting candles and checking the clock every five minutes with a hopeful heart, Jay was miles away, sitting in a dark office, wishing the day would just end.
The clock showed 2:00 AM when the front door finally creaked open.
The house was chillingly quiet. Sophia had given up hours ago and retreated to her room, unable to watch the heartbreak any longer.
Keifer, however, hadn't moved. He had fallen into a light, restless sleep on the couch, surrounded by the shadows of the party that never happened.
The sound of the door woke him instantly. He sat up, his eyes bloodshot, watching Jay shuffle in. She looked like a ghostâpale, trembling, and barely able to stand.
"Where were you?" Keifer's voice was raspy, stripped of all its usual strength.
Jay didn't look at him. She stared at a fallen ribbon on the floor. "I told you, Keifer. Work was a mess. I had to finish the reports."
"Stop it," he snapped, standing up. "Stop lying. It's 2:00 AM on your birthday, Jay. Nobody works like this. Just give me an explanation. A real one."
Jay tried to walk past him toward the stairs. "I'm tired, Keifer. Can we just talk about this tomorrow?"
Keifer stepped in her path, his heart finally reaching its breaking point.
"No. No more tomorrows. I need to know why you're doing this. I've tried everything. I've waited, I've supported you, I've loved you... but you act like I'm your enemy."
He looked into her eyes, searching for even a spark of the girl he knew.
"Do you really feel nothing for me? Is that it? Or..." He paused, the question tasting like poison in his mouth. "Do you have someone else in your life? Is there someone else you're doing all this for?"
Jay felt the air leave her lungs. She looked at Keiferâthe man who had waited in the dark for her, the only person who had ever seen through her maskâand she knew she had to end this.
If she didn't break him now, she would keep dragging him into her darkness. She had to make him hate her.
"Yes," she whispered.
Keifer froze. The world seemed to stop moving. "What?"
Jay forced herself to look him in the eye, though it felt like her soul was tearing apart.
"You asked if there's someone else. There is. That's why I can't do this, Keifer. That's why this marriage is just a deal. My heart is already taken."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Keifer's expression shifted.
The pain in his eyes didn't vanish, but it was suddenly covered by a layer of frost. He didn't yell. Instead, he became terrifyingly calm.
"I see," he said, his voice dropping to a cold, heartless tone she had never heard before.
He looked at her with eyes like flint.
"Then where are you going now? At 2:00 AM? At least survive this deal, Jay. Are you going to that someone else right now?"
The "deal." He was using her own words against her, throwing back the coldness she had used as a shield.
Jay felt her heart shatter into a million pieces at the sound of his voice. She couldn't breathe, couldn't explain, and couldn't take back the lie.
"Yes," she choked out, her voice barely a sob.
She couldn't stay a second longer. She turned around and ran back out into the cold night, the door swinging shut behind her.
Upstairs, Sophia was standing behind her bedroom door, her hand covering her mouth. She had heard it all.
She saw through the crack in the door how Jay's hands had been shaking, and how Keifer now stood in the middle of the room, looking like a statue of ice.
(I was planning to end this chapter here , but I feel like if I wouldn't upload, you guys might kill me đ đ, so here's your bonus, enjoy ) â¤ď¸
The door slammed shut, and the sound echoed like a gunshot through the empty, decorated house.
Jay was gone, disappearing into the dark, rainy night.
Keifer stood frozen for a few seconds, his face a mask of cold stone.
But then, the mask cracked. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the floor right in the middle of the birthday decorations he had spent all day preparing.
The "Ice King" was gone. He leaned his head against the side of the couch, and heavy, silent tears began to roll down his cheeks. He felt like he was suffocating under the weight of her "yes."
Sophia finally couldn't take it anymore. She ran down the stairs and hurried to his side, kneeling in the mess of ribbons and wrapping paper.
"Keifer... Keifer, please," she whispered, reaching out to touch his shoulder. "Don't believe her. You know Jay. She's lying. She has to be."
"She said it, Sophia!" Keifer suddenly screamed, turning on her with eyes full of agony.
"She looked me in the eye and said there was someone else! What else do you want me to hear? One night, she didn't even come home, Sophia. Not at all. How much more of my heart am I supposed to let her shred?"
Sophia flinched, tears springing to her own eyes. She had never seen her brother this broken, this volatile.
Seeing her cry made Keifer's anger vanish instantly, replaced by a wave of guilt.
"I... I'm sorry," he choked out, rubbing his face with his hands. "I'm sorry, Soph. I didn't mean to yell. I just... I can't breathe."
"I know," Sophia sobbed, wiping her eyes. "But you have to follow her. You can't let her stay out there alone. It's 2:00 AM, Keifer!"
"No," he said, his voice turning cold again. "If she doesn't care, I also don't care anymore. If she wants to be with someone else, let her. I'm done."
Sophia didn't say a word; she just reached into her pocket and slammed her phone down on the floor in front of him.
"You said she didn't come home that night?" Sophia's voice was trembling but firm. "Look at this. This is where she was while you were busy being angry."
It was the photo she had takenâJay, pale and exhausted in the middle of the night, tenderly wiping their father's forehead while he was sick.
She hadn't been with another man; she had been acting as a silent caretaker for their family, hidden in the shadows of the very house they lived in.
Keifer stared at the screen.
His heart thumpped painfully against his ribs. The realization hit him like a physical blow. She had been right under his nose, suffering in silence to help his father, and she hadn't said a word.
"Follow her, Keifer. One last time," Sophia insisted, her eyes boring into his. "I know where she is. If I'm wrong todayâif she really is with someone elseâI promise I will never take her side again. I'll never mention her name. But please... just go."
Keifer looked from the photo to his sister. The cold wall he had built around his heart finally crumbled. He grabbed his car keys and stood up, running toward the door.
____________________________
The cemetery was swallowed in a thick, gray mist that tasted like salt and damp earth.
It was 3:00 AM, the hour when the world is at its coldest, and the silence was so heavy it felt like it was pressing the air out of Keifer's lungs.
Sophia led him through the rows of weathered headstones until she stopped abruptly, pulling him behind a massive, weeping willow.
Her hand was trembling as she pointed toward a small, secluded corner of the graveyard.
There she was.
Jay wasn't standing. She was sunk onto her knees in the mud, her expensive office clothes ruined, her hair plastered to her face by the drizzle. She didn't look like the sharp, polite woman who had broken Keifer's heart an hour ago. She looked small. She looked like a child lost in a nightmare.
She wasn't crying yet. That was the part that made Keifer's blood run cold. She was staring at the two headstones in front of her with eyes that looked deadâhollowed out, as if every ounce of light had been drained from her soul. She looked like she had already followed her parents into the ground.
"Mom... Dad..."
Her voice was a whisper, but in the dead silence of the graveyard, it sounded like a scream.
"I never asked you for anything," she began, her chin trembling as she looked up at the cold marble. " Not when you asked me for that promise... the one that's choking me every single day. I didn't even complain when you left me. I just... I stayed quiet."
A single, fat tear finally broke free, tracing a path through the dirt on her cheek. Then another. Then a flood.
"But I'm asking you today!" she suddenly shrieked, her voice ripping through the mist like a jagged blade.
She slammed her palms into the mud.
"I'm asking you today because for the first time, I'm not the only one dying! I hurt him! I looked at the only person who has ever truly loved me since you died, and I destroyed him! I lied to him! I made him hate me!"
Behind the tree, Keifer felt his knees go weak. He had to lean against the rough bark to keep from falling. Every word she screamed was like a physical blow to his chest.
"Why?" she wailed, her forehead dropping to the cold, wet grass.
"Just tell me why! Why did you leave me with that... that monster? Why did you bind me to a promise I can't keep anymore? I'm a girl, too! I'm human! I want to be loved! I want to tell him the truth!"
She began to sobâa raw, primal sound of a heart finally shattering into pieces.
She wasn't just crying; she was mourning the person she used to be, the love she thought she had thrown away, and the secret that was eating her alive.
Keifer watched her, his own vision blurred by tears.
He heard the word "monster." He heard the word "promise." He didn't understand the "who" or the "what," but he finally understood the "why."
She hadn't been running from him; she had been running to protect him from a ghost he couldn't see.
A/n :
2300+ words complete.
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Here's your spoiler :
Keifer found Jay's dairy