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The night carried a heavy smell, almost stuck against the walls. Mona sensed something was wrong the moment she stepped inside the apartment. The silence, usually just slightly tense, felt tonight… thick. As if someone had drained the air before she arrived.
She put down her bag, took off her shoes. A vague exhaustion pressed behind her temples.
She knew they talked less. Touched less. Avoided each other without even meaning to. She no longer expected anything from him except, maybe, another lie delivered with a clean face.
But she hadn’t planned on discovering this tonight.
Passing by the desk, a metallic glint caught her eye. The grinder. Open. A bit of resin still clinging between the teeth.
She froze. Her heart gave an odd thud, a muted sound against her ribs.
She inhaled slowly, carefully, so she wouldn’t explode immediately.
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t scream.
She just stood still, the grinder in her hand, jaw tight.
Footsteps behind her. Scara walked into the room rubbing his eyes, probably after being outside. He still wore his hoodie—the one he always puts on when he goes out to smoke, even though he swears he doesn’t.
When he saw her, he stiffened.
“Mona?”His voice was a bit rough. Already guilty.
She simply raised the grinder. Nothing else.
He blanched.
“It’s not… it’s not what you think.”
She felt something crack inside her, but not in an explosive way. No, it was worse. A calm, clean fracture, almost cold.
“Oh, ‘not what I think.’” She set the grinder back on the table. “You know, I thought you’d at least come up with a different line. You’ve already given me that one.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, fingers trembling. A lie was forming, she could see it building behind his eyes.
“I just… I had a bad day, okay? It’s been a while. I slipped. It’s nothing.”
Mona let out a laugh, but it wasn’t really a laugh. It lacked air, warmth.
It was just tired.
“Two months, Scara. Two months you’ve been telling me you’re clean. Two months I believed you.” She looked down at her hands, as if trying to understand how she could’ve been so naive. “And all that time, you were just looking me straight in the eyes while lying to me.”
He lifted a hand toward her, hesitant.
“Mona, I said I’m sorry. Why are you dramatizing?”
Something tugged sharply inside her chest.
“You hear yourself?”
He sighed sharply, already defensive.
“You’re gonna start preaching again? ’Cause I swear I don’t have the energy for that right now.”
She stared at him for a long moment, as if trying to make him understand the gravity of what was happening. But there was nothing to grasp. He was already closing off.
Then she dropped the question:
“Where were you tonight, Scara? Why were you blowing up my phone? Were you scared I’d get home before you and see this?”
He frowned. “I was calling because you weren’t answering. And you have the nerve to be mad at me for this. Where were you, huh?”
She blinked. Slowly. Very slowly.
“What?”
“I’m talking to you.” His voice hardened. “You didn’t text me back all night, Mona. What am I supposed to think? That you were just out to ‘clear your head’? Seriously?”
She felt anger rising—not the burning kind. The cold one. The kind that paralyzes.
“You’re accusing me of what? Seeing someone?”
He ran a hand through his hair, irritated.
“I don’t know. Maybe. You’re distant, you barely talk to me, you don’t kiss me anymore. And tonight you don’t answer, you come home late, and… what? I’m supposed to play dumb?”
She stared at him, shocked. “So you smoke behind my back for two months, but I’m the suspicious one?”
He raised his voice: “Stop flipping it on me! You act like you expect me to be perfect while you’re—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Her tone cracked like a slammed door.
Scara stopped instantly taken aback.
She spoke again, softer: “There were a thousand moments where you could’ve come to me. Just talk to me. Not lie. Not hide your joints. Not make me look like the paranoid girlfriend.”
He clenched his fists. “Every time I try to tell you something, you look… elsewhere. Like you’re tired of me.”
She didn’t answer. Because he was right, she was. Tired. Exhausted by the cycle. Tired of monitoring him, wondering if he was slipping, watching for signs, smells, gaps in his schedule.
She still loved Scara. But she was drowning in a love she could no longer breathe inside.
He spoke again, quieter: “You know when I realized we were done? When you stopped wanting us to sleep together.”
She grabbed the desk edge, trying not to shake. “That’s not true. That’s not the issue. The issue is the lying. The issue is your… your absence. Even when you’re here.”
He laughed, but without joy. “Like you’re here? Come on. It’s been weeks since you even wanted to touch me. Weeks you’ve been acting like I’m toxic.”
She inhaled deeply. This time, she didn’t step back.
“I don’t want us to touch because I don’t trust you anymore. And you felt that.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Sticky.
He looked away. “So what now? You want us to pretend we’re a normal couple? ’Cause you don’t know what you’re doing anymore. Just admit it.”
Her throat tightened. She realized her hands were actually shaking. Not from anger. Not frustration. Exhaustion.
“I just…” Her voice cracked. “I just want you to stop making me the guilty one when you’re the one hurting me. Every time.”
He stood still, face blank, lost somewhere between anger and remorse.
So she spoke the sentence that cut both their legs out from under them: “I’m sleeping in the other room tonight.”
He paled. “Wait. Mona. Seriously?”
She nodded, without looking at him. “Yes. I can’t stay with you tonight.”
He stepped toward her. Stop right there, he thought. ‘Don’t touch me’. He stopped, as if he’d heard.
“We’re not getting anywhere like this, you know.” His voice wasn’t aggressive anymore. Just broken. “I swear, I’m trying. But I can’t do this anymore.”
She clenched her teeth. A single tear escaped, silent, almost ashamed.
“Me neither.”
She left the room before her legs gave out.
In the hallway, she leaned against the wall, breathing in small, shaky bursts.
She heard Scara curse behind the door.
Later, she heard him laugh under his breath on the phone. With her.
Sandrone.
And Mona understood, suddenly, that something was already slipping away from her. Not because of another woman. Not because of the drugs. But because the distance between them had grown too wide to stitch back together.
She went to lie down in the small room she’d called “the office” for months.
Tonight, it was just an exile.
And somewhere in the apartment, their love was crumbling, slowly, like a wall too old to stand.