New Life After Heartbreak

That night, perhaps because my heart had long grown numb, I surprisingly slept well. But when I saw Taytum Elliott holding an emerald pendant, now broken in two, I fell apart completely.

"Is this yours? I accidentally broke it..." she said with an air of innocence.

The familiar emerald hue sent a shiver down my spine. I seized Taytum's hand, my eyes blazing with anger. "Who gave you the right to touch my things? Why would you break it?"

I usually kept the pendant safely tucked away in a small box in my drawer. It was obvious Taytum had broken it on purpose. Staring at the only thing my grandmother had left me, now in pieces, I couldn't hold back my fury any longer. I snatched the fragments from Taytum's hand.

As if performing in a play, Taytum suddenly fell backward, knocking over the wine glass rack on the table. The sound of shattering glass echoed as she collapsed onto the nearby carpet.

Before I could react, Emilio Williams rushed in and shoved me into a heap of broken glass, making my wrist bleed.

"What are you, out of your mind?!" Emilio shouted, his face a mix of shock and anger. Upon seeing the blood on my wrist, he merely frowned.

He then looked away and hurried over to help Taytum up. "Sis, I broke the pendant; it was my fault. You can hit me or scold me..."

Emilio's gaze flitted between us before finally settling on a furious glare at me. "Adele Reynolds, it's just a pendant! Did you really have to lose it like that?"

I screamed, "That was the only thing my grandmother left me before she passed!"

Emilio paused, but his expression quickly hardened again. "People die, and memories fade. Keeping a pendant doesn't bring them back. If it's broken, it's broken. I'll get you a replica if that's what you want."

His insensitive words made my hands tremble with rage. He knew perfectly well that my grandmother was the only family I'd ever had. He knew how much that pendant meant to me. He knew, yet he still said such things...

The room seemed to spin around me. I almost shouted, "I kept that pendant locked in a cabinet, so why was it in her hands?!"

"Emilio Williams! Do you even have a heart?"

Seeing my emotional state, Taytum began to cry, looking pitiful. "Sister, I didn't mean to...please forgive me..."

With that, she even looked like she was going to kneel. Emilio quickly pulled her up, shooting an irritated glance at me. "Look what you've done! You've scared her!"

"She's crying and apologizing to you. What more do you want?"

His words were dripping with impatience, and his icy stare felt as if it could pierce right through me. It was as if I had been unreasonable from beginning to end.

Taytum, nestled in Emilio's arms, gazed at me with tear-filled eyes, playing the victim. And I, biting my lip hard, let my bloodstained wrist drip onto the carpet.

At that moment, I realized with painful clarity that this relationship was beyond saving. Before I could speak again, Emilio was already walking away, hand in hand with Taytum.

Watching their retreating figures, I felt a rush of blood to my head. I stood there, my heart feeling as though it had been struck by a heavy hammer, aching unbearably.

Never before had I wished so desperately for the day to come when I could leave all this behind.