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The rain had been falling for three hours.
Shekainah sat beneath the old streetlamp outside the train station, her clothes soaked through, her hands trembling around a phone that had gone cold against her palm.
One message.
That was all she had sent.
“Can we talk?”
He had seen it.
He never replied.
She stared at the tracks as the last train disappeared into the distance. The sound faded slowly, leaving behind the kind of silence that hurt more than noise ever could.
They had once promised they would never leave each other alone.
Promises were strange things.
They sounded beautiful when you believed them.
They sounded cruel when you were the only one still keeping them.
Shekainah remembered the first time she met James. He had smiled at her like she was the only person in the room. He had listened to every stupid story she told, remembered her favorite songs, and held her hand whenever she was afraid.
He made her believe she was worth loving.
And maybe that was why losing him hurt so badly.
Because she hadn't just lost a person.
She had lost the version of herself that believed she could be loved.
Her phone finally vibrated.
Her heart jumped.
James: “I'm sorry.”
Two words.
Shekainah laughed quietly through her tears.
She typed:
“For what?”
The reply came almost immediately.
“For not loving you the way you love me.”
Her fingers froze.
She read it once.
Twice.
Then again, hoping the words would somehow change.
They didn't.
She wanted to ask him why.
Why wasn't she enough?
Why did he stop looking at her like she was home?
Why could he hold her hand and still feel so far away?
Why could he say I love you for months, only to make those words feel like a lie later?
She typed everything she wanted to say.
Then deleted it.
Typed again.
Deleted it again.
Finally, she wrote:
“Why can't you love me?”
The typing bubble appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then nothing.
Shekainah waited.
One minute.
Five.
Ten.
Eventually, she locked her phone.
She looked up at the rain.
“Why?” she whispered.
There was no answer.
Only the sound of water falling around her.
Three months later, Shekainah found him at a small café they used to visit.
James was sitting by the window.
He looked happy.
That was the cruelest part.
He was laughing with someone else.
A girl sat across from him, smiling as he reached for her hand.
Shekainah stopped outside the window.
She watched them for a long time.
She noticed the way James looked at the girl.
Soft.
Warm.
Certain.
The same way he had once looked at her.
Something inside Shekainah cracked.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough for her to realize that maybe she had been asking the wrong question all along.
It wasn't:
“Why can't you love me?”
The real question was:
“Why did I keep begging someone to love me when they had already decided not to?”
She walked away.
She didn't cry.
Not because it didn't hurt.
It hurt more than anything she had ever known.
But some wounds become too deep for tears.
That night, Shekainah opened the drawer beside her bed.
Inside was a photograph of her and James.
They were smiling.
Young.
Hopeful.
Still believing forever was something people could promise and keep.
She held the photograph against her chest.
“I loved you,” she whispered.
Her voice broke.
“I loved you so much.”
She turned the photograph facedown.
For the first time, she didn't ask why he couldn't love her.
She knew the answer.
Sometimes you can give someone every beautiful piece of yourself, and they still won't choose you.
Not because you weren't enough.
Not because you were unworthy.
But because love cannot be forced into a heart that doesn't have room for it.
And that truth was devastating.
Because Shekainah would have stayed.
She would have forgiven everything.
She would have loved him until there was nothing left of her.
But James had already left long before he walked away.
And she was only now learning how to leave, too.
Outside, the rain began again.
Shekainah stood by the window and watched it fall.
For a moment, she imagined him coming back.
Knocking on her door and saying he was sorry.
Saying he finally understood.
Saying he loved her.
But she knew better now.
Some people become memories before they become strangers.
And some goodbyes happen long before the final words are spoken.
Shekainah turned off the light.
The room became dark.
She whispered one last time:
“Why couldn't you love me?”
Then, after a long silence, she answered herself.
“Maybe you couldn't.”
“And maybe…”
She swallowed the pain in her throat.
“…I have to learn to love myself enough to stop waiting for you.”