Page 112 of Xander

What was worse? Living a life without the man I loved or risking institutionalization every time I didn’t do as he commanded? Perhaps I would've taken the risk if there weren’t a baby involved.

I had no plan to speak of, but at some point, I had to regain clients and rebuild a new life for myself and my baby. I assumed Xander would eventually give up searching for me. After all, a professional NHL player didn’t have the luxury to travel internationally searching for their ex-girlfriend.

Nonetheless, I spent my limited budget on a laptop to stream his games. After each goal, he’d make the same gesture for the camera, the one he’d done when I went to his game, to signal that the goal was dedicated to me.

The strain this separation was having on him was evident even through a computer screen. He was playing rougher than before, earning just as many penalties as goals and getting into fights that left the ice streaked with blood, almost as if punishing himself for the loss of what could’ve been between us.

It seemed he was far from forgetting me, and the pain in his eyes very closely reflected my own. I was constantly terrified about the extremes he seemed to be driving himself toward.

Amid my anger and hurt, a deep sadness for him washed over me, drowning me in a sea of despair. Seeing him destroying himself slowly was agony. My heart shattered into a million pieces all over again, each one throbbing with the unbearable weight of missing him.

During one of our calls, I asked Piya what it was like to love her husband, Zane. She said, and I quote, “Painful, because sometimes he makes it impossible to love him, but it’s much more painful to live without him.”

That was precisely how I felt. Loving Xander was painful, it was fucking crushing me from the inside.

I couldn’t live with him.

But I certainly couldn’t live without him, either.

My very being had been shattered, like a delicate glass vase that had been smashed into countless pieces. My heart had been torn into two: the piece of me that wanted to live free with my baby, the other part of me that existed only with Xander.

A few men from my apartment building had asked me out to dinner, offering to take away the emptiness that was consuming my daily thoughts and threatening to swallow me whole. But the idea of any of them touching me made me physically ill—and not just because I was pregnant.

I found no pleasure in others or their company. When people tried to befriend me at the local café, I found myself keeping my distance.

Life without Xander had turned into an excruciating ordeal. I woke up every morning searching for him, only for my heart to sink when reality would settle in. The only thing I’d have to look forward to for the day was the cold emptiness of a future without him. It was a cruel fate, robbed of true love and dreams.

But the nights were worse, filled with silence and coldness. When I climbed into bed, the very thought of never feeling the warmth of his arms or experiencing the pleasure he could give me was suffocating, a loss that I hadn’t begun to process. I’d lay awake in bed, imagining the weight of his body pressing against mine, only to feel his absence instead. The loneliness of it was like a physical weight crushing my chest.

Setting the table for one had become more depressing than it had been while “married” to Henry because I hadn’t particularly cared for his company. Knowing who could be sitting across from me made me want to break down on the floor.

I had no idea it was possible to miss someone to the point of pain.

Then, a horrifying thought occurred to me—I would always feel this way without Xander. Because the void I had felt when he left only stopped after he returned to my life.

After another depressing week, my mind was plagued with thoughts of Xander more than ever. As I lifelessly started my daily routine, I absentmindedly glanced at my phone. My eyes widened when they landed on the date on the screen.

Today was Xander’s birthday.

The last of my resolve broke like a floodgate. I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to talk to him today, even if it was to wish him a measly happy birthday.

That wasn’t so bad, was it? It was his birthday, after all.

Unable to resist, I logged into my social media accounts, which I had avoided for weeks. I needed some sort of connection with him today…

And that was when I saw it. My inboxes were flooded with messages from Xander.

There wasn’t one day he hadn’t tried to reach me.

Correction.

He hadn’t gone an hour without messaging me on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Like a sap, I read through the Instagram messages first. I thought they’d be filled with threats about locking me up in an institution for good if I didn’t come home.

Instead… they were apologies.

Hundreds of apology texts, and not the half-assed version Henry used to throw my way. Real apologies.