Serena pov
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I have no trouble referring to Eiser by his first name when speaking to other people… but strangely, I can't bear to call him by that name to his face. Every time I try, my tongue feels heavy, as if the sound itself would betray something I'm not ready to admit. It's a strange little war inside me—a tug-of-war between the familiarity I crave and the distance I insist on maintaining.
Even though I've now decided to trust Eiser a bit more… I still feel uncomfortable with the kind of intimacy that calling him by his first name would evoke. It feels like opening a door I'm not yet prepared to walk through, a doorway that leads to vulnerability I'm unwilling to confront. There is still that last bit of wariness towards him remaining in my heart, that unshakable fragment of caution that whispers I might be wrong, that he might still hurt me—or leave me. I think that was why I couldn't manage to call out to him just now, why my voice seemed to betray me by staying silent.
Since we weren't out in the open, where others could see us, it's hardly surprising that Eiser would be more concerned with Diah, his former lover, than with me… what goes on between those two is none of my concern, or at least that's what I tell myself. My rational mind insists on it. But the fact that he took Diah's hand… that he left me here, walking away with that woman in tow… it struck me like a jolt of ice. I didn't want him to leave me behind. Not like this. Not with that easy, careless dismissal of my presence, as though I were just scenery he could ignore.
Why does that make me so angry? The question repeated itself in my mind, an echo that refused to fade. I had no right to feel abandoned—I knew the history, I knew the context, I knew everything—but knowing didn't soften the sting. It only sharpened it, honed it into a precise point of bitter awareness. My pulse throbbed in my temples, a hot, insistent drum of frustration and longing that I could neither name nor expel.
In a moment of heated exchange with the man I'd just seen Eiser with, Diah countered his accusations with a simple, painful defense: "We merely had different ideas about how to go about solving a problem. That's it." Her words were calm, almost detached, but in them I sensed a quiet vulnerability, a fragile honesty that cut through the tension.
And then, she whispered the words that would echo in my mind, words that clawed at something deep and unhealed: "All I did was love you."
Those words lingered like smoke, curling through the empty spaces of my thoughts. Love. Such a simple word, yet heavy enough to make my chest ache, to make my skin prickle with unwelcome awareness. She had loved him, freely, without apology, and in that love, I felt the sharp edge of my own jealousy, my own confusion. The unfairness of it—it was almost too much to bear, the way her quiet confession demanded recognition, demanded that I face the truth I had been avoiding: that Eiser had the capacity for deep connection, that he had loved someone else, and that I, despite everything, still wanted his attention, his care, his presence.
I swallowed, tasting the bitterness of it. And I wondered, not for the first time, whether my wariness was a shield or a cage, whether my silence was protection or self-torture. I couldn't decide.
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Eiser pov
"You're right," I conceded to Diah, the words sliding out with a dry, bitter taste that seemed to cling to the back of my throat. As she had said, "We simply have different approaches to problem solving." Simple words, but they carried a weight I couldn't ignore, an unspoken reminder of the gulf between what I was capable of and what she had done.
The man who had kissed her moments before—Eiser—paused. His striking blue eyes, normally so unreadable, fixed on Diah with a kind of intensity that made the air between them tremble. It wasn't just tension; it was something more dangerous, more potent, as if a storm were gathering in that gaze.
"I don't think you were wrong in doing what you did," he admitted quietly, each word deliberate, measured. "But if I were you… I'd never have made that choice."
I felt a strange, corrosive heat in my chest as I watched them. A deeper conviction took hold of me, one that gnawed at my sense of self. It was true. I wouldn't have made that choice. I'd never have knelt and begged for my life, knowing there might have been another way, a path where I could have stood alongside you, fought alongside you, without surrendering my dignity or my resolve.
No matter how terrified I might have been—no matter how fear of death, fear of abandonment, or fear of loss clawed at me—I would never have pleaded on my knees toward someone I feared. Fear doesn't make me weak; submission does. And I would have fought back. I would have resisted, tooth and nail, to protect what was mine, to safeguard the people and things I held dear.
Even if I had already lost everything that mattered, I would have refused to crumble. I would have refused to let despair claim me. I would have clawed my way back, step by step, using whatever strength, cunning, or resolve I had, to reclaim what was lost. I would have survived—not by bending, not by yielding—but by facing the storm head-on, by letting my own hands, my own choices, define the outcome.
And in that realization, I felt a hard, bitter truth settle over me: I might admire her courage, even envy the freedom of her choices—but I could never replicate them. My survival would always be forged differently, by my own rules, my own hands, my own will. And that, I realized, made all the difference.
I have no trouble referring to Eiser by his first name when speaking to other people… but strangely, I can't bear to call him by that name to his face. There's a tension in the sound itself, a weight that lodges in my chest, making it almost impossible to speak. Every time I think about doing it, I feel the vulnerability it would expose—the intimacy I am not ready to claim, the closeness I am not yet willing to risk.
Even though I've decided to trust Eiser a little more, even though I've begun to soften my rigid defenses, the very idea of addressing him directly feels like stepping onto a frozen lake. One wrong move, one misstep, and I could plunge into uncertainty. That last fragment of wariness, that final shard of caution, is lodged deep in my heart, keeping me guarded. I think that's why I couldn't manage to call out to him just now. My silence was a shield as much as it was a betrayal of my own desire.
Since we weren't in the open, not surrounded by prying eyes, it's hardly surprising that Eiser would be more concerned with Diah, his former lover, than with me… what passes between them is none of my concern. Rationally, I know this. Yet the sight of him taking her hand, of turning and walking away with her in tow, ignited a storm of indignation in me. I didn't want him to leave me behind—not like that, not so casually. And the truth is, that anger stung far more than any fear of being ignored.
Why does that make me so angry?
Diah spoke, her words carrying both plea and confession in that fragile, tremulous moment. "We merely had different ideas about how to go about solving a problem. That's it." Her whisper followed, almost fragile in its sincerity: "All I did was love you."
But Eiser's expression hardened, warmth draining from his features like sunlight fading behind clouds. "I'm sorry," he muttered, voice low, clipped. Cold.
Diah's eyes shone with quiet sorrow as she added, "I ended up trying to explain myself first, but that was the first thing I wanted to tell you when I saw you again. I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
And then his voice, sharp as a blade of ice, carried a finality that froze the air between them. "So… listen to me and listen well." His gaze leveled, blue eyes hard and piercing, cutting through the space with the precision of glacial shards. "Choosing Victor might have been the best option for you… but for me, it was the absolute worst thing you could have done… and the point of no return."
A part of me agreed with the harshness in his words.
"This is simply a part of my wretched, troublesome past that I cannot and do not ever want to salvage. While it may not have been properly sorted out over all these years that she and I were apart, to me, this relationship ended a long time ago. That's what I wanted… the path I wanted to take."
He stepped back, the weight of his decision radiating in the deliberate movements of his body. "I ignored all your letters and invitations since I didn't ever want to see you again, but I think this was for the best. Seeing each other face-to-face is a surer way of bringing us both closure."
Another step echoed through the silence—a resounding, irrevocable beat that felt like the closing of a door I wasn't allowed to open.
"So stop all of this. Understand that our paths will never again converge."
And as the words sank into the air, I felt the chill in my chest, the hard, undeniable truth pressing in: some bridges, once burned, can never be rebuilt. Not by letters, not by explanations, not by pleading. Only by acceptance.

"I'M SORRY. PLEASE FORGIVE ME."
The words spilled from me with a tremor, fragile and desperate. Hollow, I knew, inadequate, yet they were the first ones I had prepared to say when I saw him again. I had tried to explain myself first, fumbling in the hope of justification—but it had been a mistake. Now, facing the cold, unyielding man before me, I repeated the plea with everything I could summon: a fragile shard of hope, a desperate wish to mend what had been broken.
He simply stood there, his profile outlined against the gilded window, the sharp line of his jaw softened only slightly by the faint, golden light. "I'M SORRY," he said, his voice a monotone echo of mine, utterly devoid of warmth, as though the words were empty shells, stripped of feeling.
I watched him take a measured step back; the click of his polished leather shoes against the marble floor struck like a hammer, creating a chasm between us far wider than mere physical space. With each step, the distance seemed to stretch into eternity, an insurmountable void.
"I ignored all your letters and invitations since I didn't ever want to see you again," he continued, the words precise, carefully restrained, yet somehow cutting through me like ice. "But I think this was for the best. Seeing each other face-to-face is a surer way of bringing us both closure."
The finality of it pressed into me. Every syllable, every deliberate pause, radiated a cold resolve. He had not come for reconciliation—not for forgiveness, not for conversation—but for severance. The man I had loved, the one who had once held my future in the palm of his hand, now looked at me with the detached cruelty of a judge delivering a verdict.
"So…" His voice was deceptively simple, yet the weight behind it crushed the air between us. The single word hung suspended, charged with a tension that made my chest tighten painfully. His green eyes, usually so alive with fire, now seemed like shards of emerald ice, dissecting me with their unflinching focus. "...LISTEN TO ME AND LISTEN WELL."
I felt a knot in my chest tighten, sharp and insistent, but I forced myself to hold his gaze. I would not look away, not yet.
He gestured dismissively toward the remnants of our past, as if erasing it with a flick of his hand. Memories flared in the red-tinged haze of the room, angry, chaotic fragments that now seemed trivial under the weight of his words. "This is simply a part of my wretched, troublesome past that I cannot and do not ever want to salvage," he said, letting the bitter truth sink in.
He paused, giving the words time to land. "While it may not have been properly sorted out over all these years that she and I were apart, to me… THIS RELATIONSHIP ENDED A LONG TIME AGO."
I tried to push back, to claim some control over the ending, weakly murmuring, "That's what I wanted… the path I wanted to take." But even as I spoke, the words sounded hollow, pathetic, echoes of a past ambition that had no weight against the finality of his resolve.
His voice shifted, darkened with pain, a memory clawing its way through the cold façade—a flash of a woman, clearly pregnant, a silent accusation against me, haunting, unavoidable.
"Choosing Victor might have been the best option for you…" His words dripped with bitter irony, laced with all the unspoken agony of what might have been, the desperate, forbidden closeness we had shared. "...BUT FOR ME, IT WAS THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING YOU COULD HAVE DONE… AND THE POINT OF NO RETURN."
His hand lifted in a decisive, abrupt motion, severing the lingering tether between us. "SO STOP ALL OF THIS. UNDERSTAND THAT OUR PATHS WILL NEVER CONVERGE AGAIN."
He turned, each step deliberate, measured, leaving me behind in the wreckage of a past he refused to acknowledge, a past I could never undo. I stood frozen, watching him retreat, the echo of his steps amplifying the emptiness around me. The closure he sought was his liberation—but for me, it was utter, irreversible heartbreak.
I was left there, a solitary witness to the end of everything I had hoped for, my hands trembling slightly, my chest tight with the weight of what could no longer be. Every heartbeat was a silent reminder: the bridge was burned, the door closed, and I had no key to unlock it.
Here's an expanded version of your passage, keeping the first-person perspective, heightening the tension, emotional stakes, and psychological detail, while remaining true to the existing narrative:
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"IT SEEMS YOU DIDN'T UNdERSTAND ANY OF WHAT I JUST TOLD YOU."
His voice, already so COLD, sharpened with an edge of exasperation, a remnant of a past I desperately clung to. He turned, sweeping his gaze over me as if I were nothing more than a shadow in the room, a ghost he'd rather ignore. The air itself seemed to shiver under the weight of his disdain, and I felt it ripple through me, making my blood run cold.
"Don't delude yourself into thinking that things between us will ever go back to the way they were."
I watched him, my chest tightening, my heart straining against the invisible cage of finality he radiated. There was no fury, no bitter accusation—only a calm, relentless absoluteness that carried more cruelty than any outburst ever could. I could almost see it, the remnants of what had once burned between us—the flames of anger, of betrayal—now reduced to a small, contained fire in a decorative tray, harmless yet symbolic.
"The flames of my hatred for you have burned out over the past four years. All that remains of it is ash."
His words landed with a guttural weight. He wasn't merely rejecting me; he was erasing me from memory, stripping away every connection, every lingering thread of intimacy, leaving nothing but dust in his wake.
"I'm completely empty. I no longer feel anything for you at all. I don't even resent you anymore."
Detachment. Worse than anger, worse than malice. Anger implied a wound, a connection, a history worth remembering; emptiness was the death of significance. I realized, with a cold shock, that to him, I was nothing.
He took a STEP, deliberate, measured, towards the door, then another STEP, widening the space between us, not just in distance but in everything that mattered. "We have no reason to meet again whatsoever… so quit while you're ahead."
A surge of defiance rose in me, sharp and desperate. "All right, Leinz," I said, my voice a soft plea, almost a whisper. "I understand if that's how you feel right now."
I forced calm into my words, even as my heart raced, my pulse pounding in my ears. "ALL I CAN DO IS BELATEDLY RESPECT THE CHOICE YOU MADE."
I knew he was leaving, severing the last fragile thread connecting us. But I couldn't let him go—not without trying, not without clearing at least some of the wreckage, some of the misunderstandings I had carried silently for so long. "I understand if that's how you feel right now. But don't leave just yet. I'd like to clear up any unnecessary misunderstandings between us."
He paused, hand resting on the ornate doorknob. The weight of the moment pressed down on me; this might be my only chance.
"I know you married Ms. Serena for a certain purpose," I said, voice careful yet trembling, acknowledging the reality of his present, the life he had moved into. "I'll wait until you've accomplished your goal."
I pressed on, pouring every fragment of hope I had left into my words. "Please know that I'll come back to you then and ask for a second chance."
He said nothing, his back still to me, but I sensed the air shift slightly, a tiny hesitation threading through the silence.
"…."
His hand still rested on the doorknob. I took a deep breath, letting the moment stretch, letting the words hang unspoken for a heartbeat. Then I delivered the final, most crucial truth—the secret I had carried, the truth that had twisted perception, fed his misunderstandings, and haunted both of us.
I watched his hand, knuckles whitening against the polished brass. PAUSE.
"I WAS NEVER PREGNANT."
The words shattered the silence, vibrating through the room like an invisible pulse of electricity. The revelation hung between us, fragile yet explosive, a truth long withheld now finally set free. My chest tightened; every nerve thrummed in anticipation, waiting for his reaction, waiting for any sign that these words might pierce the layers of ash, emptiness, and finality he had meticulously built around himself.
For a long moment, there was nothing—only the sound of my own heartbeat, echoing against the walls, marking the fragile, trembling space between us.
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"I WAS NEVER PREGNANT."
The words reverberated in the room like a hammer against glass. I watched Leinz's hand on the doorknob freeze mid-motion, the slightest, almost imperceptible twitch in his shoulder the only sign that the truth had landed. Beneath the layers of ash, of carefully maintained indifference, the secret I had carried for years had struck a direct, unrelenting blow. I had laid bare the very lie that had shaped his four years of cold resentment, and now I waited—half-expecting an eruption, a torrent of anger, disbelief, or desperate accusation.
For a long, tense moment, there was nothing but silence. Every tick of the ornate clock in the corner felt amplified, each second stretching unbearably. Then, slowly, deliberately, he completed his turn to face me. His face was a mask of controlled fury, sculpted and unreadable, but his eyes—those devastating, emerald green eyes—betrayed a flicker of pure, unadulterated shock.
"If I could, I'd like to erase every single memory of you."
His words cut through the tension like ice. He didn't question my confession. He didn't challenge it, nor offer the slightest concession of acknowledgment. He simply expressed a raw, impossible wish: to remove me entirely from his history, to un-know me, to undo every shared moment, every trace of what had been. The lie that had supposedly justified his marriage to Serena, his hatred, his distance—now null and void—meant nothing. The emotional damage, the chasm between us, ran far too deep.
He wrenched the door open, the metal handle rattling violently in his grip, and the door slammed shut behind him with a resonant finality. The echo reverberated against the marble floors, a violent punctuation mark that seemed to underscore everything I had lost.
I stood frozen in the silence, listening to the latch click firmly into place. My knees felt weak, threatening to buckle, and my shoes clacked faintly against the marble as I took a hesitant, weary step forward. I had spoken the truth, but it had been dismissed. The confession I had carried like a loaded weight was, for now, meaningless to him.
My focus shifted immediately, snapping me from despair back to necessity. The larger world waited. "Raul…" I murmur