The Comments Begged Me to Believe He Loved Me, His Actions Had Already Convinced Me Otherwise Chapter 05

The Comments Begged Me to Believe He Loved Me, His Actions Had Already Convinced Me Otherwise Chapter 05

[He’s watching her walk away in the rain. He’s DESTROYED. No way this lasts — they’ll make up before morning.]

[Wait — HE’S the one reaching out?? That never happens. No matter what, my ship is getting their happy ending!]

[He hasn’t moved from the window. He’s literally turning to stone up there. Baby girl PLEASE just turn around and LOOK.]

But I knew Silas. An apology was never coming.

Sure enough. For two seconds after I picked up, there was only silence — then his voice came through, raw and scraped.

“Where are the spare toothbrushes? Chloe needs to wash up, and she’s got the competition in the morning.”

I didn’t answer right away. A long breath leaked out of me before I could speak.

“Second cabinet, left side, next to the sink.” I paused. “Silas, don’t call me over something this trivial. There’s a 24-hour convenience store downstairs.”

“I’m not your caretaker anymore.”

“…Trivial?”

The word came out confused, almost wounded — but he shoved past it before I could make sense of it.

“You left a bunch of stuff here. It’s in the way. If you don’t want it, I’m throwing all of it out.”

I’d packed fast — just clothes and my ID. The photo of us on the nightstand, the small portrait in his studio, the half-finished sketchbook we’d been filling together — all of it was still there.

None of it mattered anymore.

“I don’t care. Just throw it all out.”

The words barely made it out before my chest clamped shut. I hung up, hailed a cab, and didn’t let myself think.

I paid too much for a last-minute hotel room, stood under a scalding shower until the water ran cold, and collapsed into something that wasn’t really sleep.

He was in the dream, of course. Silas always loved drawing me.

In the early days his sketches were stiff, uncertain. But after we got together, they loosened — the version of me that lived in his drawings was more alive than I ever felt in person. Laughing, crying, every expression rendered like he’d already memorized it.

And I’d played along because of the comments, searching every brushstroke for proof that he loved me.

One afternoon I’d teased him, grinning. “So — does the great Silas keep drawing me because every artist needs a muse?”

The tips of his ears went pink, but his expression didn’t crack. He scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re practice. You’re not good enough for the final piece yet.”

I’d just smiled. The comments had already given him away — all that “practice” was really Silas teaching himself to capture every detail of the girl he couldn’t admit he loved.

So I’d kept playing along, happily justifying his coldness. But lying in that empty hotel bed, I saw it differently.

Since when was love supposed to be this hard to say out loud?

I was a science major. I didn’t know the first thing about art. But I’d dragged myself to countless exhibitions a year, just to close the gap between us. It didn’t matter how many movements I memorized or how many galleries I walked through. I was never going to reach him.

Chloe didn’t even have to try. She just walked in and spoke his language.

Seven years I’d spent orbiting Silas, letting my own career and my own life take a backseat. It was time to stop.

I woke up with a jolt, pressed my fingers to the bridge of my nose, and reached for my phone. Before I could second-guess myself, I pulled up my research grant application and hit submit.