PART 4 – Five Days of Silence Convinced Me I Had Been Right, Until the Front Door Opened and Skyla Finally Came Home

The first day without Skyla felt longer than it should have.

I kept looking at my phone.

Every time I checked it, I hoped there would be a message explaining what was happening.

There wasn't.

I called her again, even though she had specifically asked me not to.

She didn't answer.

I told myself I had a right to hear from her.

After all, I had supposedly told her that I was seriously ill.

I had supposedly told her that I couldn't afford the treatment I needed.

What kind of person heard those things and then disappeared?

That was the question I kept asking.

It never occurred to me to ask what kind of person invents a life-threatening crisis and then uses the other person's reaction to judge their character.

I didn't want to think about that.

It was easier to focus on her absence.

The second day passed without the answer I wanted.

I tried to make sense of the message she had sent.

She hadn't said she was ending the relationship.

She hadn't explained why she needed five days away.

She had simply told me she was leaving and asked me not to call.

There were details I didn't know.

I knew that.

But instead of accepting that I lacked information, I filled the empty spaces with the explanation that hurt me most.

She had decided I was no longer worth the trouble.

She had seen the size of the problem and chosen to protect herself.

She had finally shown me what my friends and family had suspected all along.

I repeated those thoughts until they began to feel like facts.

The third day brought no clarity.

Neither did the fourth.

By then, I had spent so much time thinking about Skyla's absence that I had almost stopped examining my own behavior.

I had wanted to find out whether she would remain beside me through a crisis.

Now I was using the silence as proof that she wouldn't.

I didn't consider that I had given her no honest explanation for what was happening.

I didn't consider that I had asked her to believe something terrifying without allowing her to understand the full situation.

I only thought about what I believed she had done to me.

That was how I got through those days.

Not well.

Not wisely.

But by making myself the injured person in a situation I had created.

I told myself I had been foolish to trust her.

Then I reminded myself that I had never really trusted her in the first place.

Those two thoughts should have contradicted each other.

Somehow, I managed to hold on to both.

I had been testing her because I doubted her.

When she didn't behave as I expected, I treated that as proof that the doubt had been justified.

I never asked whether the test itself had made it impossible for me to see her clearly.

By the fifth day, I had reached a conclusion.

My friends had been right.

My parents had been right.

And I had been right to question the relationship.

I was so certain that I had almost stopped hoping she would return.

Almost.

Some part of me still listened for the sound of the front door.

Some part of me still looked at my phone whenever it lit up.

I hated that part of myself because it reminded me that I wanted Skyla back even after convincing myself she had failed me.

I wanted to be proved wrong.

I wanted her to walk in and explain everything.

I wanted an answer that would make the previous days feel less empty.

But I had spent those same days preparing myself to reject whatever she might say.

I had already decided what her silence meant.

I had made my judgment before hearing her side.

That evening, the front door opened.

I looked up.

Skyla walked inside.

She looked exhausted.

Not merely tired after a long day, but worn down in a way that caught my attention before I could think about anything else.

For a moment, I forgot all the accusations I had rehearsed.

She was there.

After five days of silence, she was standing in front of me again.

I got to my feet.

I wanted to know where she had been.

I wanted to know why she had left.

I wanted to know why she hadn't answered my calls.

And I wanted to know whether the conclusion I had reached during those five days was the truth.

The questions crowded together.

I could have started by asking if she was all right.

I could have looked at her tired face and given her a moment to breathe.

Instead, I demanded an explanation.

"Where have you been?"

Skyla didn't answer.

She didn't argue with me.

She didn't offer a defense or tell me that I had misunderstood her message.

She moved toward the table.

I watched her, still waiting for her to speak.

Then she placed something in front of me.

I looked down.

For a few seconds, I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing.

The anger I had carried through the previous days began to loosen.

My certainty disappeared.

I looked at Skyla again.

She still appeared exhausted.

She had spent five days away, and I had spent those same five days convincing myself that she no longer cared about me.

Now there was something on the table between us, something she had brought back with her instead of an explanation.

I stared at it.

My throat tightened.

The questions I had been preparing to ask suddenly seemed small and selfish.

I had wanted her to prove that she loved me.

I had wanted to see what she would sacrifice when faced with a problem she couldn't solve easily.

I had wanted to discover whether she would choose me over her own comfort.

And now I was looking at what she had brought home after five days away.

I couldn't speak.

My eyes filled before I could stop them.

"Skyla, what have you done?"

Click here to continue reading: PART 5: What Skyla Had Put on the Table Made Me Question Everything I Had Believed About Her