BETH:

My sleep has been a mess for quite some time now. By now, I would think it get better but it hasn't. Troy only made it worse for me and I knew I had to go for a checkup before it gets to a point where I can't control what happens to my sleep.

I landed in the hospital an hour after the little incident that I cannot even make sense of as much as I would like to. But I wasn't going to let that overshadow my train of thoughts.

The heavens didn't seem to get my plan because why did I see the Ariana and Troy walking into the elevator as I approached it?

I wanted to turn back but I knew I couldn't risk it. Especially not with the way I was feeling. So I joined them and we got into the elevator without me saying a word to acknowledge them.

Out of nowhere, Troy asked me, "Are you sick?"

Without looking at him, I answered: "Just a bit of insomnia worrying me."

"Hmph. Remind me to get you something later. It might help reduce the lack of sleep you're experiencing," he said.

That sounded like the old him that was always thoughtful. It didn't move me however but it was nice to know that he still had a little bit of nice in him.

I think he was going to utter another word but Ariana suddenly whimpered like she was in pain which caused him to shift his attention to her. She couldn't even stand not being the center of it all for a few seconds and so had to force it back.

The elevator kept going up... Until it didn't.

The suddenness that came with a loud bang affected me. But what was worse was the lights that went out with it.

I was claustrophobic. And my fear kicked in the moment the lights went out. I had to crouch down in fear just so I could at least get a hold of myself as my panic made me start to shake terribly.

I was having a difficult time here. Why did the lights have to go out in this situation? Why did the elevator stop working? My mind is a mess right now and I hoped it would get sorted.

My palms were sweaty and damp as I held them together. I needed comfort but I couldn't even get one.

"Beth? Beth? Are you okay? Talk to me." I guess Troy didn't forget about my fear.

My response came out forced. "Y– Yes."

"Breathe with me. Close your eyes. It's going to be alright," he said, saying the same words that he said to me the last time something of such occurrence happened in the past.

I still remember when it happened. I didn't know how to react at that time so I found myself crying terribly. I was in a worse condition than this but guess who came through for me? Of course, Troy.

He had come down to my level at that time and embraced like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. At least that was how I had felt at that time. But now, he couldn't even offer to do such to me because of the woman beside him.

"Hold on, Ariana. Let me help Beth. She's scared of the dark," I heard Troy say to the woman beside him.

"But I'm scared too!" Ariana protested.

And that was what he needed to completely ignore me while I battled my worst fear. The longer it took for me in here, the worse I became. My condition wasn't something I could handle alone. It has never been.

"T– Troy," I whispered his name, hoping he would have a little sympathy and just help me out.

That little hope was shattered as instant as it came as he said, "Ariana needs me."

Tears slipped down my cheeks as I continued my long battle alone. I buried my head in my arms and it actually made it better for me just by a tiny bit.

After what seemed like an eternity, the lights eventually came back on and the elevator started moving again. I didn't stand up from the position I was in until the elevator reached the final destination.

Immediately, I wiped the bead of tears that had fallen from eyes and then stood upright. I was still in shock from everything that I found myself staggering as I began to walk.

"You don't even care about me, do you?" I managed to say to Troy, my voice exuding the hurt I was feeling. I didn't wait for a response from him before I continued to walk away.

I still had an appointment to meet up with and would have to deal with any other thing later.

BETH:

"I'm home," Troy announced from the living room but I wasn't going to even give him an ounce of acknowledgement. Why was he trying to get my attention when he always sneaked into the house however he liked?

I stayed in my room while going through the picture that my mother sent to me. It was a picture of a wedding gown which had the caption: 'Do you like it?'. I haven't even reached home yet and my mother was already planning the whole event for me.

"Beth? Can you come down for a minute?" Troy called from the living room. I would ignore but it seemed he had something important to speak to me about for him to call me like that.

I walked to see him holding a bouquet of lavender. He also had with a bag of takeout. What was this? A peace offering?

"Here's for the insomnia. It should make you feel better," he said as he handed over the plant to me. I collected it while hesitating. "And this too," he said, handing the takeout to me as well.

I opened it to see that it was a box of seafood which actually made me shocked because he knew I was allergic to that.

"You know I can't eat this, right?" I said, my brows raised at him.

"My bad. I completely forgot," he said, scratching his head.

It was ridiculous to think that he would even try to give it to me when I was clearly not used to taking something like this. I guess he has really fallen out of love with me and was just tolerating my presence in his life.

He didn't need to worry for too long. I was going to leave soon and he could have his 'sister' alone to himself. I don't have the strength to be fighting for a lost cause and I wasn't even planning to do that in the first place.

But then I remembered something.

"What are your plans for tomorrow?" I asked him.

"Uhm, nothing really."

"Good," I said. "Tomorrow's your birthday. Come down from work early. I'm going to make you dinner."

As half decent of a cook I was, I wanted to cook him a meal to celebrate his birthday because I felt like it would be nice to at least spend a little time with him despite the obvious falling out we were having.

I knew he wasn't going to be so excited about that but then he nodded after a few seconds to regard my proposal.

It took a lot of strength to get me to start cooking the meal the next evening. I could tell that cooking was not my specialty and would never be but I just wanted to get something right for once. Maybe I would figure a way to understand why Troy was focusing more on the other woman.

No matter what I did, the food didn't taste any good. I got fed up a some point and just decided that it was okay to be served.

I kept my eyes on the time. Troy should be back from work by now but there was no sight of him till now.

He never showed up no matter how much I waited. Not even a text or a call to let me know his schedule.

I wanted to cry because this was not my expertise but I still cooked him a meal. Showing up would at least appreciate the effort I put into what I did.

I decided to put a call through to him and he picked up on the second ring.

"Are you coming home or not?" I asked.

"I can't," he responded swiftly. "I had to get Ariana to the hospital. She had a nasty cut."

So he was close by before and didn't even bother to check in with me. For heaven's sake, Ariana's new apartment was just right across the other street, one which he even paid for with his own money, but he still couldn't do the reasonable thing.

I was fed up at that point. Something told me he was lying so I hung up the call and went on IG to check the update on Ariana from my burner account after she blocked my main one.

On the burner account, I figured out that Troy was lying. At the moment, he was on a date with Ariana to most likely celebrate his birthday. They looked so happy together and it made me wonder what I did wrong.

"Enough is enough," I said to myself as I stood up from the chair. I carried the meal I had prepared and thrashed everything into the waste bin. It was going to waste anyway.

Over three years of commitment in this relationship and this is what I get from him. I don't deserve this. And truly, he doesn't deserve me.

BETH:

The three years I've been with Troy, I've had reasons to actually abort for him. I don't know what I was thinking when I did that but two times, he had told me he was not ready to father a child when I had informed him I was pregnant.

"I'm not financially ready to take care of a child," he had told me the first time I announced I was pregnant.

"I'm not in the right state of mind. We can't have a child now," he had said the second time.

The excuses were probably the most unreasonable but I had given into them because of how much I loved him.

Left to me, that should be enough sacrifice to keep our relationship going but I guess that wasn't enough to please him. Neither did it thrill him to know that I would do anything for him.

"Don't you think it's too late to be travelling? What's with the rush, Beth?" Mom asked me as I dragged my big box out of the room alongside a small bag that contained items that couldn't fill up the box. Both items were heavy but I managed to get them out of the house.

"It's better I do it now, mom. I don't want to draw any attention from the neighbors during the day," I stated right after I put the box and bag on the ground right behind the trunk of my car.

But that was a lie.

The truth was that I was planning my exit this late because of Troy. I didn't want him to see me as much as I couldn't stand him anymore. And what better way to make that known than to just walk away completely.

"It's not safe." I could hear the concern in my mother's voice as she spoke and I shared in that too. It was the dead of the night and the oddest hour to be on the road. However, I was doing it for me.

"I know, mom. But I promise to drive safely. I'll see you soon," I told her before hanging up the call.

The sigh that escaped my lips after that was from the realization that I had to get my box and bag into the trunk of the car. I sighed again before starting with the task.

The first thing I did was get the box into the trunk. It took quite a lot of effort but I eventually succeeded. It came with a lot of grunting and I even had to catch my breath before I put the bag, which was less heavier, into the trunk.

As soon as I stepped into the driver's seat, my phone beeped loudly. I looked at the screen of my device to see it was a message from my mom.

'Be careful.' That was what she simply wrote to me. And I could imagine her saying those words.

I read that and nodded. She was right. It was truly dangerous to be driving around by this time but this was the only time I could leave without being noticed.

My eyes darted toward the apartment across the street. The one that belonged to Ariana now that she just moved into it. I could tell the house was empty and it was apparently not from her having a nasty cut and needing to be rushed down to the hospital.

I shook my head and took my eyes off it. Then I looked toward the apartment that I was finally saying goodbye to after three years.

Instantly, I ignited the engine of the car and the reversed out of the car space. I was on the road in no time, finding my way out of the city into another one.

A thought hit me. There was no way I was going down without giving Troy something to worry about. I was leaving him, yes, but he needed to feel the impact of my leaving.

So, I parked my car by the side of the less busy road, picked up my phone, and then signed into my burner account.

I went on to Ariana's page on IG and took multiple screenshots of her with Troy. I also searched for some evidences I had on my phone from before then I went on to my main account and put up those screenshots with the caption: 'They look good together'.

I was going to turn off my phone after doing that but I decided not to. A call came in about five minutes after I got back on the road.

Lo and behold, it was from Troy.

"What in the world did you do? Why would you put up something like that? Have you gone mad?" Troy lashed into the phone right after I managed to pick up his call. It was on his fifth attempt that I finally did.

"Hello to you too," I said to him dryly.

"Do you know what damage you're causing? How this is affecting Ariana?"

Again with the Ariana girl. It was never about me. Never been about how I felt. But he never failed to mention the littlest of things that affected Ariana.

"I want you to put down that post this instant. And after you do that, you will apologize to Ariana. Do you hear me?"

I didn't know when I began to chuckle into the phone. I chuckled so hard that I almost forgot that I was on the road. Thankfully, my senses kicked back in time.

"Goodbye, Troy," I said and without thinking it twice, I put off the call and then switched my phone off.