Two Weeks and A Lie.

 I hadn't packed much, just enough to escape. A pair of worn jeans, some oversized shirts, few dresses incase I needed to get wild. A paperback I wouldn't read, and my broken heart stuffed deep between the creases.

I left home without telling anyone where I was going. After five years of bending, breaking, and becoming someone else in the name of love, I needed solitude. Or silence. Or something in between.

The hotel was tucked off a coastal road far from the city buzz, just sea breeze, long hallways, and a faint smell of fresh linen. It was perfect.

I didn't come looking for anything, least of all a man. 

I had sworn off them after what Ablie did to me. Love, loyalty, forever, all words he used while texting other women and making me feel I was too much to love. Or not enough. 

So when I first met the man in suite 214, I didn't smile. I didn't flirt. I didn't even look him in the eye.

He was tall, fair, dressed in a navy linen shirt that said he had taste. But the smug on his face when he bumped into me at the elevator irritated me. My phone slipped from my hand and cracked.

He didn't say sorry, just smirked, muttered something about being in a hurry and disappeared behind the closing doors. 

Typical. 

That night, there was a knock on my door. I opened it halfway, ready to snap, until I saw a hotel staff holding a shopping bag. 

"A guest in 214 asked me to deliver this."

Inside: A brand new phone. Same model. A note scribbled on hotel stationery.

"I was a jerk. Consider this a clumsy apology. O."

I shouldn't have smiled. But I did. 

Over the next few days, we ran into each other by the pool, lobby, during breakfast. 

Slowly, the hellos became late night talks. He told me he was here on a work break, said life had gotten heavy and needed air. I didn't pry. I understood heavy. 

His name was Omar. He had a laugh that lingered and a voice that melted across conversations like slow honey. 

He never asked about my past. And I never asked about his. Instead, we talked about books, music, what hurt us, and what we secretly hoped for.

He listened in a way that Ablie never did. He noticed things like how I drank lemon tea at night or pulled at my sleeves when nervous.

He bought me a scarf and said it matched my eyes.

"You're too guarded," he told me once.

"Because I've been broken into," I replied.

But slowly, against all sense and self promises. I let him in. 

Our final night came like a whisper. The moon poured gold onto the floor of his suite, and the air smelled of grilled shrimp and wine.

We sat across from each other on his balcony, half laughing over some inside joke. 

"I wish I met you at a better time," he said.

I nodded. My chest fluttered. I didn't want to leave. 

For the first time in months, I wasn't angry, I wasn't bitter, I felt... Held. Not with arms, but with presence. 

The his phone rang. He'd gone to the bathroom, and it wouldn't stop buzzing. I wasn't going to answer. But I glanced at the screen.

"Wife calling..." I froze.

It rang again. My fingers trembled. Against better judgement, I picked it up. "Hello?"

There was a pause, then a soft voice. 

"Hi, is Omar there?" I couldn't breathe.

"who's this?"

"I'm his wife." silence.

I didn't say a word. Just ended the call and set the phone down like it burned me. 

He came out seconds later, smiling, unaware. But the look on my face stopped him mid-step.

"What happened?" I pointed at his phone.

"she called."

The air shifted. The truth, heavy and dense, finally entered the room. 

He sighed. "it's.... Complicated."

"No, Omar. It's actually very simple."

I stood up, grabbed my bag, and walked past him. My heart wasn't breaking, not this time. 

It was hardening again. And this time, I wouldn't apologise for it. 

I checked out before sunrise. 

As the receptionist printed my bill, I wrote a note on the back of their brochures and asked her to leave it at room 214.

"You almost made me believe again. Almost."

As the cab drive me back toward the city, I watched the sea fade in the mirror.

It hurt. God, it hurt. But not because I was starting to love him. 

Because I had started loving me again in the process. 

And that is what he'd ruined.