The air in the room felt like shattered glass—each breath Clara took cut her throat, leaving the metallic taste of grief on her tongue. She didn't move. She couldn't. Her feet felt rooted to the expensive hardwood floor, the same floor she had spent hours polishing just last week because she knew Julian liked the shine.
"You should have told me," she whispered, her voice trembling so violently it was barely a thread of sound. She looked up at him, her eyes searching his cold, handsome face for even a flicker of the man who had proposed to her under the starlight. "If I was so repulsive to you, Julian… why didn't you tell me from the beginning? I would have changed. I would have starved myself. I would have lived in the gym. I would have carved pieces of myself away until I was thin enough to fit into your world. Why did you let me believe I was enough?"
Julian exhaled a long, weary sigh, the sound of a man who had reached the end of his patience. He didn't look like a villain; he looked like a man who was bored.
"Clara, I tried," he said, his voice dropping into a tone of forced gentleness that felt more insulting than a slap. "God knows I tried to accept you. I told myself that your heart was what mattered, that your kindness made up for… everything else. I tried to look past the weight, the way you don't fit into the clothes I buy you, the way you look next to my colleagues' wives. But I failed. I'm a man, Clara. I have needs, and I have an image to maintain."
"You failed?" she choked out, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in her chest. "You failed at loving me?"
"I'm sorry," he said, and for a second, he actually sounded it—sorry that he had to deal with this mess. "I should have released you a long time ago. I stayed because I was grateful. I really was. No one has ever been as kind to me as you have. You're too kind, Clara. That's your problem. You're so good that I felt like a monster for wanting to leave, so I stayed. I dragged this out because I didn't want to break your heart, but look at us now. This is worse."
He gestured vaguely toward the woman in the bed, who was now scrolling on her phone, completely indifferent to the destruction of Clara's life.
"I've found the one, Clara," Julian said firmly. "Sasha… she's what I need. She understands the world I live in. She fits. You deserve someone who will accept you for exactly who you are—some nice, simple man who doesn't mind the things I mind. But that man isn't me."
The finality in his voice sent a jolt of pure terror through her. For an orphan who had lost everyone, Julian wasn't just a fiancé; he was her entire world. He was her home, her family, her future. The thought of a life without his name to hold onto—was a vacuum that threatened to swallow her whole.
Clara lunged forward, her fingers clawing at the silk of his robe, her knees hitting the floor with a painful thud. She didn't care about her dignity. She didn't care about the woman watching her grovel.
"No, Julian, please!" she sobbed, clutching his waist as if he were a life raft in a storm. "Don't say that. Don't make it final. We can fix this! I'll go to the gym tomorrow. I'll start a diet today—I won't eat, I promise. I'll be just like her. I'll be thinner than her! Just tell me what you want me to look like, and I'll do it. Please, don't throw away three years because of a few pounds. Think about our promises. Think about the house we looked at! We can still have that life!"
Julian tried to peel her hands off him, his face twisting with a mixture of pity and growing revulsion. The more she begged, the more he seemed to shrink away from her touch.
"Clara, stop it. You're making a scene," he muttered, trying to push her back.
"I'll change!" she wailed, her face pressed against his leg, her tears soaking into his skin. "I'll change everything! Just don't leave me alone. I have no one else, Julian. You know I have no one. Please, let's just sit down and talk about the wedding arrangements. We can move the date back if you want. We can take a break, but don't call it off. Please!"
Her desperation was a physical thing, a heavy, cloying weight in the room. She was willing to erase her entire identity, to become a shadow of the woman in the bed, just to keep a man who had just admitted he didn't want her.
Julian's patience finally snapped. He shoved her away with enough force that she tumbled back onto the floor, her hair falling over her face in a tangled mess. He stood over her, his chest heaving, his face flushed with a sudden, sharp rage.
"Enough!" he roared, his voice echoing off the high ceilings like a thunderclap. "Look at yourself, Clara! Crawling on the floor, begging for scraps of affection from a man who doesn't want to touch you? It's pathetic! I've made up my mind! I am done with your tears, and done with this suffocating 'kindness' of yours! Stop being so damn dramatic and just for once, try to understand me! I want a life that doesn't involve coming home to you! Now, get out!"
The silence that followed Julian's roar was more deafening than the shout itself. It was a thick, ringing void that seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room, leaving Clara gasping for air that felt like liquid lead. She remained on the floor for a long moment, her knees bruised against the hardwood, her palms pressed into the floorboards. She looked like a fallen bird, broken-winged and grounded in a world that had suddenly turned predatory.
Slowly, painfully, she lifted her head. Through the veil of her tangled, chestnut hair, she looked at the man standing over her. This was the man who had promised to protect her. This was the man who had sat across from her at small bistro tables, whispering about their future children. Now, he looked at her as if she were a stain on his expensive flooring—something to be scrubbed away and forgotten.
The desperation that had fueled her begging moments ago began to cool, replaced by a hollow, freezing clarity. The heat of her tears felt like ice on her cheeks.
"Julian," she said, her voice no longer a shriek or a sob. It was a low, brittle vibration, the sound of something crystalline finally reaching its breaking point.
He let out a sharp, derisive breath, turning his back to her as he reached for a silk robe to cover his nakedness. "I told you to leave, Clara. The conversation is over. There is nothing left to say that hasn't been said a dozen times in the last ten minutes."
"Just one more thing," she whispered, forcing her trembling limbs to move. She pushed herself up from the floor, her body feeling heavier than it ever had before. She felt every ounce of the "burden" he had accused her of being, but she forced her spine to straighten. She stood there, disheveled, her makeup ruined, her heart in tatters, yet there was a sudden, tragic dignity in her stance.
She waited until he turned around, his face etched with a look of extreme boredom.
"Is this it?" she asked, her eyes searching his. "I need you to say it. No more 'I'm sorry,' no more 'I tried.' I need to know, Julian... is there a single part of you that will regret this tomorrow? Is there any world, any timeline, where you wake up and realize that three years of loyalty was worth more than a few months of a 'perfect' image? Are you truly, finally, never coming back to me?"
Julian didn't even hesitate. He didn't even blink. He leaned back against his mahogany dresser, crossing his arms over his chest. In the bed behind him, Sasha let out a soft, mocking giggle, but Julian's eyes stayed locked on Clara's.
"I will never come back, Clara," he said, his voice as flat as a tombstone. "In fact, my only regret is that I didn't do this a year ago. I feel lighter already just knowing I don't have to carry the weight of your expectations anymore. Go find your 'simple' life. I am moving toward a future that doesn't have room for you in it. Ever."
The finality of it hit her like a physical blow to the chest, but this time, she didn't stumble. The "never" settled into her bones, chilling the last of her love into a dormant, frozen memory.
"I see," Clara said.
She looked down at her left hand. The diamond ring—the one she had cleaned every single morning with a soft cloth, the one she had guarded as if it were a holy relic—glinted mockingly under the chandelier. It felt like a hot brand against her skin, a shackle she had mistaken for a gift.
With fingers that didn't tremble anymore, she gripped the band. It was tight—her hands were swollen from the crying and the stress—but she pulled. She pulled until the skin reddened, until it hurt, until the metal finally slid over her knuckle.
She walked forward, her steps heavy but purposeful. Julian flinched slightly, perhaps thinking she was going to strike him, but she simply reached out and placed the ring on the edge of the dresser. It made a tiny, pathetic clink as it hit the wood.
"Then I won't keep this a moment longer," she said. She looked him in the eye, and for the first time in years, she didn't look at him with adoration. She looked at him with the profound, quiet pity one feels for a man who has traded a soul for a mirror.
She turned her gaze to Sasha, who was still lounging among the pillows. Clara's voice was steady, hushed, and hauntingly sincere.
"I hope you get exactly what you want from him," Clara said to the woman. Then, looking back at Julian, she added, "And I hope you never have to find out what it's like to have no one in the world, Julian. I hope you never have to learn that beauty fades, but cruelty stays in the blood."
She took a deep breath, the first one that didn't feel like it was tearing her lungs.
"I wish you both all the best," she said. "I truly do. Because you deserve each other. You deserve exactly what you've built here today."
Without waiting for a response, without looking back at the cufflinks on the floor or the bed they had shared, Clara turned. She walked out of the bedroom, down the long, silent hallway, and through the front door.
As the heavy door clicked shut behind her, the silence of the penthouse was replaced by the distant roar of the city. She stood on the landing, an orphan with no home, no fiancé, and a heart that had been hollowed out. She was "fat, ugly, and a burden" in the eyes of the man she had loved.