She tore the page from her sketchpad, crumpling it in her fist before tossing it into the dustbin with a sharp flick of her wrist.

It missed.

Of course it did.

With an irritated exhale, she leaned back in her chair, dragging a hand through her hair.

For two days straight, she hadn't been able to draw a single thing.

And time wasn't kind.

In a week, she had to return to France. Her final-year submission depended on this project, yet her mind felt like a hollow canva.

With a restless breath, she pushed herself up and began pacing in the room.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

She grabbed a glass of water, taking a hurried sip as if it could somehow rinse away the creative block clawing at her mind.

Her phone buzzed.

She paused mid-step, glancing at the screen before picking it up.

She unlocked the screen to find some messages from one of her classmates...the one who lived and breathed Formula 1 like it was religion.

There weren't many messages, just a single one with a link.

'You should watch this.' 😂

She let out a quiet sigh, somewhere between annoyance and curiosity. Knowing her friend, it was probably some chaotic race moment or a driver doing something ridiculous.

Dropping onto the couch, still holding the glass of water, she clicked the link.

The video began with noise...loud, chaotic. Cheers, whistles, the electric hum of a crowd riding adrenaline.

The camera shook slightly before zooming in, trying to catch something specific.

And then it did.

Her brows knitted together instantly, a look of discomfort crossing her face.

There was a man and his head was buried between a woman's widely spread thighs, his face completely lost in her glistening core. He was devouring her with filthy hunger...tongue dragging long, wet strokes up her slick folds, sucking hard on her swollen clit while two fingers pumped deep inside her. The woman's face was unmistakable...eyes half-rolled back, mouth open in a moan of pure bliss, cheeks flushed as she gripped his hair.

"Seriously?" she muttered under her breath, already moving her thumb to close the video.

But then her fingers stopped as the man moved.

He lifted his head from between the woman's trembling, juice-smeared thighs, his face shiny with her slick arousal, lips swollen and glistening, eyes dark with lust as he looked straight toward the camera with a wicked, satisfied smirk.

And everything inside her... stopped.

Time didn't slow.

It snapped.

Her breath caught halfway in her throat, her fingers going slack around the glass.

No.

No, no, no.

The glass slipped.

It fell from her hand, hitting the floor with a sharp, shattering crash, turning into hundreds of pieces on the tiles.

She didn't flinch.

Didn't even blink.

Her eyes were still locked on the screen.

On him.

The last thing she heard before her trembling fingers fumbled and closed the video was a voice in the background, laughing, careless, unaware of the destruction it had just witnessed.

"You truly know how to celebrate victories, mate."

She didn't move.

She sat there on the couch, unmoving, as if the world had sped up around her while she remained trapped in that one unbearable moment. Her chest tightened, a suffocating pressure building, as though invisible hands were reaching in and tearing her apart from the inside.

Her chest tightened.

Then tightened more.

Until breathing itself felt like a struggle.

God... it hurt.

Not a clean kind of pain. Not something sharp and quick.

This was slow. Spreading. Burning.

Like something had reached inside her and wrapped around her heart, squeezing and twisting.

Her hand rose instinctively, pressing against her chest as if she could hold it together, as if she could stop whatever was breaking inside her.

But nothing changed.

Nothing eased.

A shaky breath left her lips, uneven and fragile.

Why did it hurt this much?

It wasn't like he belonged to her.

He never did.

There were no promises between them. No stolen confessions, no lingering touches that meant something more. No quiet moments that she could claim as hers.

He didn't even know.

Didn't know that she paused every interview just to see a glimpse of him

And maybe that was the cruelest part of all.

Because this pain?

It was entirely her own doing.

It was entirely hers.

Her foolish, stubborn heart that refused to listen, refused to let go.

"God..." she whispered, though it came out broken, barely more than air.

Something warm landed on her hand.

She stilled.

Another drop followed.

Slowly, she lifted her fingers to her cheek.

It was wet.

Her vision blurred further as realization settled in.

She was crying.

And she hadn't even noticed when it started.

A soft, humorless breath escaped her, something dangerously close to a laugh but far too hollow to be one.

How many times had she scolded herself for this? For holding onto something so one-sided, so hopeless?

Countless.

And yet her heart never listened.

It held on stubbornly, quietly and patiently...waiting for something that was never going to be hers.

And now...

now it was finally facing the truth.

And it was breaking under the weight of it.

Her fingers curled slightly against her chest, as if she could still protect something fragile there.

But it was already too late.

Somewhere along the way, her heart had stopped caring about reality.

She loved a man who was never truly hers, and now she was mourning a love that had never really been hers.

________________________