Chapter One

I never thought silence could be so loud. But as I sit across him from the table, the silence speaks louder than any of the words I’ve said to him in the past, and those he’s said to me. And it’s killing me as each second passes.

For a moment, I forget what I said just a minute ago, and all I can see is his face. The beautiful face that I’ve come to love. Tired, but tranquil. Troubled, but peaceful. I realize the full impact of my words must have sunk in by now, yet he isn’t crying. He isn’t showing any emotions I expect him to. Anger. Disbelief. Sadness. None. His facial expression remains composed as he slowly opens his mouth to speak.

“Why?”

“I’m tired, Luhan.”

“Tired?” His voice trembles, and for a millisecond, I thought he would burst into tears, but he didn’t.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m sick of people thinking I’m not normal.”

He sniffs softly, looking down at his plate of fried rice. Untouched. I stare at mine and stab a piece of green pea with my fork, because if I don’t distract myself I’m afraid I will reach over and throw my arms around him.

No. I can’t. Not if I want to redeem my reputation.

Reputation? Ha!

I half-expect him to ask if I really do care about that. I would say yes, I do.

But he doesn’t ask. He refuses to look at me. I watch as his first droplet of tear falls onto the table, and in the luminous glow of the chandelier, it looks like a crystal. He must be thinking what he has done wrong, so wrong that our relationship has come to this stage.

He takes a deep breath, and then with a very calm voice, he says, “Okay.”

Okay? I jerk my head upwards. He’s smiling. At me, the person who has no doubt dropped his heart like a hot potato and broken it into millions of pieces.

I want him to be angry at me. I want him to cry and yell. To blame me for leaving him and shout that he will never forgive me. Because I can’t even forgive myself. Not now, and probably not ever. At least, if he’s mad, I don’t have feel so guilty for ending our relationship so abruptly.

Not that I have expectations for us to last forever. I knew right from the start that a love like ours is never going to have a happy ending.

Maybe deep down, Luhan knows it too.

We didn’t finish dinner, and I feel like vomiting whatever little amount I managed to gorge down.

Luhan is riding shotgun in my car. Neither of us spoke throughout the journey from my house to his. Thunder roars ferociously and the small drizzle turns into a storm in a matter of seconds.

Does he remember… that it was raining too when we first held hands?

I pull over outside his house, the end of the road. And in more ways than one. I wait for him to say something. He hasn’t spoken after the awkward “okay”. I’m worried and keep sneaking quick glances at him. He’s looking out the window, his chest rising and falling steadily and I almost forget that I’m looking at a man who’s been battling lung cancer for the last four years of his life.

After about 15 minutes of listening to the pitter patter of the rain, he turns to me and says, “Thank you.”

I want to ask, “For what?” What did I ever do to deserve his thanks? For breaking his heart? For hurting him? For going back on my promise?

“I’m sorry.” There’s nothing else I could say except sorry. Sorry a million times.

He gives me a sad smile. His lips tremble ever so slightly and I just know he’s going to cry. But I know he won’t let it out while he’s still in front of me. He will wait until he’s back in his room, after I’m gone, so that I won’t regret my decision and hug him tight and never let him go.

And knowing that – knowing that he still thinks for me even after what I did, it hurts even more.

“Don’t be,” he says gently. “I understand.”

I don’t think he does. It takes one to know one. You don’t know what a selfish person is thinking unless you are selfish too, and Luhan is anything but.

“Take care, Sehun.”

I nod and force myself to look away as he opens the door and lets himself out. He doesn’t look back.

After he went inside, I drive away, but the moment I can no longer see his house from my rearview mirror, I stop the car and let out the sob I’ve been holding back for so long.

It’s the first time I’ve cried in years.

“Did you tell him?”

I merely nod. There’s nothing else to be said, especially to outsiders like my father. I know he means well, but no one else would be able to understand the love between me and Luhan. We’re not like the others. People think we’re broken; a flaw in society.

They know nothing.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing,” I lie. He told me “okay” and “thank you” and “take care”. All of which just makes me sound more like a bastard. But I don’t feel like telling dad all about it. I don’t want him to see my red eyes. I don’t want to pretend I’m okay, because I’m far from being okay. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

He doesn’t stop me, but I can tell that he wants to follow me to my room and make sure I won’t attempt anything stupid. “Okay. See you in the morning.”

I don’t guarantee I’ll still be alive in the morning. It’s ironic; I broke up with Luhan because I wanted to be normal again, to be accepted into society. Why do I care so much about that if all I can think about now is stop breathing?

As I lie on my bed, sleep is the last thing on my mind.

The rain hasn’t stopped, but my tears already have.

It shocks me a little when I realize how quickly I seem to have moved on, but considering I was the one who brought this up, I don’t have any rights to be sad. Luhan does, and I’m sure he is.

My heart aches when I think of him. I still see him every time I close my eyes.

Still, I convince myself that I have done the right thing. A love like ours won’t have a happy ending.

Luhan and I first met two yea