Part 3Tomorrow I Will Forget Him

Alex's brow furrowed so deeply a vein began to throb at his temple. "If I didn't love you, would I still be standing here listening to this nonsense? Would I tolerate you humiliating me in front of my colleague? I don't get you, Isla. When did you become so exhausting?"

His cold, critical gaze forced me back a step. Exhausting? He blamed me for changing, but what about him?

"Alex, you once promised that you would always believe me, no matter what. Was that a lie? Did you forget the vow you made three years ago when we almost broke up? You swore we would always sit down, listen to each other, and never let misunderstandings tear us apart."

He had even recorded those words on his phone, calling it the foundation of our relationship. I clung to those memories from my journal, but Alex merely scoffed. "Isla, you kept me awake just to bring up some ancient history? I have been working seventy hours a week at the lab. I deleted those useless files ages ago."

I looked up, meeting his impatient eyes, and a shudder ran through my body. Useless. Our promises were useless to him now. What was the point of me clinging to these memories, reviewing them night after night like a desperate student?

"Then what actually matters to you, Alex? If our promises don't matter, does Vivian?"

Alex answered without a second thought. "Vivian is brilliant, hard-working, and ambitious. Look at yourself, Isla. You sit around all day doing nothing. How can you even compare yourself to her?"

The moment the words left his mouth, a flash of regret crossed his eyes. Seeing me stand there in silence, he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Isla, I didn't mean to snap. I am just under a lot of pressure at the lab. If you are done, go to bed."

Without waiting for a response, he quietly closed the door. His muffled voice came through the thick wood. "Goodnight, Isla. We will talk tomorrow."

I turned away, my vision blurring. Alex, there is no tomorrow for us.

Clutching the half-assembled journal, a bitter doubt took root in my mind. Was this diary just a collection of lies I told myself? Was his love for me merely a delusion I had fabricated? Why did the real Alex feel so entirely different from the man in these pages?

On my way to the bedroom, I noticed a sticky note affixed to the refrigerator door. Vivian often skips breakfast and gets dizzy. Remember to bring her some food. I stared at it.

My journal used to contain notes just like that, written in his precise handwriting, but every single one of them had been addressed to Isla. Alex had deleted our voice recordings, discarded our history, and now, even his sweet gestures belonged to someone else.

I no longer had a place in his life. Maybe it was time to stop lying to myself with this journal.

I took the reconstructed journal back to my desk, ripped it into tiny shreds, and tossed them back into the wastebasket. If Alex no longer loved me, then I had no reason to force myself to become the twenty-four-year-old woman who adored him.

I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes, letting sleep pull me under. I stood back and let the memories drift away, watching the image of Alex fade until he vanished entirely from my life.

When the morning sun filtered through my eyelids, I stirred awake. My hand instinctively reached toward the nightstand, feeling as if something important should be there, but finding only empty wood. Shaking off the brief moment of confusion, I stretched, threw open my bedroom door, and called out, "Mom! Dad! What is for breakfast?"

But there was only a strange man sitting on the living room sofa. At the sound of my voice, his expression darkened. "Isla, are you seriously acting like a child? We had a small fight, and now you are calling your parents?"

Terror seized me. I took several steps back toward my bedroom, screaming at the top of my lungs. "Who are you? What are you doing in my apartment?"