How Did You Just Stop Loving Me"

1.

I snagged my boyfriend, Elias, after relentlessly pursuing him.

He was like an unattainable wildflower, plucked from a high perch, and I wanted to put him on a pedestal.

Elias never met my parents, looked down on my friends, and mostly regarded everything about me with disdain.

My best friend, Quinn, would scold me, her voice laced with frustration, "Why do you act like you can't feel hurt, can't feel wronged?"

Id just grin foolishly, "Because I love him, you know?"

"Besides, hes incredible. A golden boy. Im the one who got lucky."

I genuinely believed Elias Thorne was just naturally aloof.

That was, until the fourth day of our silent treatment, when he publicly announced his new girlfriend.

When we eventually ran into each other again, I offered a polite greeting. But as I was leaving, he suddenly asked, "How did you do it? Just stopped loving me?"

I didn't answer directly. Instead, I simply said, "Excuse me, my boyfriend's waiting."

Elias was wrong. Nobody just stops loving someone. Its more like, through a thousand tiny disappointments, you finally accumulate enough heartache to walk away.

The reason Elias and I had our last fight was, in hindsight, pretty laughable.

Id been out with friends, and naturally, had a few too many drinks. They started chanting, egging me on,

"It's so late, so unsafe. Get your boyfriend to pick you up."

Tentatively, I called Elias.

The phone rang several times, unanswered.

He was always so busy, his time for me minimal. Once, because I kept texting him, hed snapped at me, his face cold, "I'm running an experiment. Don't distract me."

One by one, my friends were picked up by their boyfriends. Theyd walk away hand in hand into the night. A few patted my back before leaving, a word lingering on their lips, but they never said it. Soon, only Quinn and I, the single one, remained.

Just as I was about to give up, Elias's low, detached voice came through.

I asked if he could pick me up.

A beat of heavy silence stretched. I thought the signal was bad, pulled the phone away, and saw that Elias had already hung up.

I couldnt even get into our apartment. Elias had changed the password, and through the crack in the door, he sneered, his voice dripping with ice.

"You reek."

"Come back when you've cleaned yourself up. Only then are you welcome in my home."

It was a rare moment when I actually got angry. I stubbornly held out for three days, refusing to contact Elias.

It was our first real fight. Usually, when he was upset, I'd rush to apologize, no matter what it was about. I was always the one to back down first, and then Id patch up my own feelings.

But if I didn't contact him, hed never reach out.

A sudden exhaustion washed over me.

But I didn't last past the fourth day. I found myself standing at our doorstep, thinking about how we were close to getting married. Why let such a small thing cause discord?

Besides, one more apology wouldn't hurt.

Quinn had pointed to her forehead, calling me an idiot. Id sheepishly retorted, "Well, after drinking, I do smell a bit, you know?"

But after I said that, she suddenly went quiet, staring at me intently for a long moment.

It took her a while to speak again, her voice choked with tears, "You're so incredibly dense."

Elias leaned against the doorframe, tilting his head as he looked at me. "What are you doing here?"

"Elias, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come home so late that night, and certainly not after so many drinks."

It was my habitual admission of guilt.

Elias seemed to just remember the incident. "Oh. We're broken up. You don't need to apologize to me."

"What...?"

"Didn't you say it yourself when you were chasing me? That you'd cling to me relentlessly unless we broke up?"

"You've given me peace and quiet for days. I just assumed we were done."

A striking girl emerged from inside the apartment. Elias put an arm around her waist. "Let me introduce you. My new girlfriend, Celeste."

All the color drained from my face.

"I thought we were just... having a fight."

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

2.

The sharp click of the door closing jolted me awake.

Quinn had just dropped me off and was already insistent on taking me away again.

"She's experienced significant trauma, so she's temporarily lost her voice."

The doctors words hung in the air. I sat there, picking at my fingers, only able to produce raspy breaths.

My phone was flooded with messages, all asking about the nine-panel photo Elias had posted on social media with another girl.

The last time Id seen Elias smile so brightly, so openly, was when I proposed to him.

"You always say you're busy."

"You can spare five minutes to propose, right, Elias? Marry me?"

His scolding about me delaying his experiment progress had abruptly stopped. His stern face had melted away like ice in the sun.

Id laughed with him then, genuinely believing he loved me too.

Elias's call came at that moment. "Stella Brooks, theres a lot of your stuff left here. Come get it tomorrow."

Five years together, and he was always like that.

"Stella, be quiet."

"Stella, stop hanging out with those friends of yours. Theyre getting increasingly low-class."

"Stella, my time isnt meant to be wasted on these silly anniversaries."

But Elias, the busy man, was actually home on a weekday, wearing loungewear, making coffee at the counter for his new girlfriend.

When Id been sick with a fever, Elias had only poured me a glass of hot water before telling me, "Something's come up at the lab. I'm leaving."

My heart felt encased in a shell. Since yesterday, it was as if Id lost all sensation of the world around me.

I numbly repeated the motion of picking things up and putting them into boxes.

Elias reached out to help me with a box, but I instinctively flinched away, sending everything crashing to the floor.

His face immediately darkened. "Breaking up was your choice, wasn't it? Who are you playing mute for?"

He didnt know I genuinely couldnt speak.

Elias was handsome, came from a good family, and was a rising star in biology. His enrollment had caused a sensation. Even though he himself was an emotionless iceberg, it didn't stop people from flocking to him.

I fell for him at first sight and pursued him all the way through college and graduation.

When I graduated, I was heartbroken, thinking Id never cross paths with him again.

"I won't bother you anymore."

But when a gossipy person raised a camera to snap a photo of us, Elias suddenly took my hand.

"Let's try being together."

"Don't look at me, look at the camera."

I still remember the thrilling tremor in my heart.

When I first snagged Elias, I thought Id hit the jackpot. I even declared,

"Being cold and distant is good. No need to worry about him cheating." It turned out to be an empty promise.

The first time I saw Celeste's name was when I accidentally picked up Elias's phone.

It was filled with endless chat logs between him and Celeste. They talked about everything, from experiment progress to daily trivialities.

I saw Celeste ask Elias, "Professor Thorne, why have you never posted about your girlfriend on social media?"

Elias replied, "Nothing worth posting."

It still stung deeply. Elias, his eyes cold, demanded, "Are you going through my phone?"

"Who is Celeste?"

He sounded annoyed. "A new intern at the lab."

"You never told me, and do you two really have that much to talk about?"

Elias seemed to realize I was jealous, and his expression softened slightly. "She's a new hire, what's there to say?"

"Besides, we only talk about lab stuff. You wouldn't understand."

"You could share it with me," I said, feeling a little hurt.

He maintained his poker face. "Like I said, you wouldn't understand. Just like I'm not interested in those plants you're always fussing over."

I owned a flower shop. I still remembered the excitement of showing Elias my first big sale.

Hed turned away dismissively. "Childish. What's the point?"

His career was noble, my dreams insignificant.

After that day, Eliass never-locked phone was protected by a password.

Quinns voice pulled me back. "Stella, don't be naive. To move on so quickly with someone else, it only proves he was already emotionally detached."

Yet, four days later, was the dinner arranged by both families to discuss Elias and my wedding.

3.

When I arrived, the scene was already chaotic.

Eliass grandmother was gasping for air, clutching her chest, while Elias knelt directly in front of her.

"Grandma, Stella and I have broken up."

"This wedding, it can't happen."

As soon as she saw me, Celeste also dropped to her knees, her eyes red and teary.

"Miss Brooks, I know you and Professor Thorne have been together for a long time, but love doesn't follow a timetable."

"And I heard that since graduation, Miss Brooks, you've done nothing but hang out with friends and potter around your little flower shop. You can't offer Professor Thorne any help in his career or family life!"

"None of us new lab members have ever seen you. Other interns partners have visited the lab at least once, haven't they? And you? You actually expected Professor Thorne to drop an important project to pick you up from a bar?"

"Miss Brooks, please, I beg you, let Professor Thorne go."

She listed off accusations, her voice full of indignant passion for Elias. Some relatives, who werent often in touch with either family, started looking at me differently.

My heart, shredded by Elias's silence, ached. I forced myself to speak, my voice raw.

"I'll return the engagement gifts tomorrow."

Days of disuse had made my throat hoarse, making my words sound like a sob.

But my answer didnt satisfy them. Celeste pressed on, aggressive. "Then write a statement, and send it to everyone."

"Professor Thorne's undergraduate roommate told us, everyone in the lab knows, that he only agreed to be with you because you hounded him relentlessly and he felt sorry for you back then."

"Don't try the same tricks again!"

"I won't allow it!" Grandmas finger trembled as she pointed at Elias, scolding him. "You insolent boy! Stella is the granddaughter-in-law I chose!"

But Eliass face was filled with mockery. "Grandma, I know you're grateful because Stella saved you back then."

"But at that time, she was just following me. She only knew you were my grandmother and happened to find you when you had a medical emergency, sending you to the hospital. It wasn't because she was as innocent and kind as you think!"

"She had ulterior motives to get close to me."

I stared at Elias blankly. I had only been waiting for him on that street. I wasn't following him. And when I helped the old lady, I had no idea she was Elias's grandmother.

No wonder when Elias arrived at the hospital, he had only frowned, said "thank you," and then irritably warned me.

"Don't try these tactics again."

Something inside me finally shattered. I smiled faintly. "So that's what you truly believed."

I looked at Celeste, enunciating each word carefully. "I never came to the lab because Elias didn't want me to."

"You say I never did anything for him? He got stomach issues from irregular meals during experiments. I found a nutritionist and worked with them repeatedly to create a stomach-friendly meal plan, making him portable, nourishing meals."

"I loved him for nine years. Can you even count how much I did for him?"

All those moments, one after another C the person involved didn't care, so why bother repeating them?

For these nine years, I had made my gamble and now accepted the loss.

"Forget it."

"This is the end."

Tears, uncontrollable, welled in my eyes.

"Elias Thorne, we are officially over."

Elias's eyebrows flickered, a faint, almost mocking smile playing on his lips. "Stella Brooks, you better mean that."

"Yes, you won't have to worry about me bothering you ever again."

He seemed unconvinced. "Last time we fought, you added me on a dozen different fake accounts. I'll delete them all today. Don't try anything else."

I nodded, my posture earnest. "Don't worry."

"Never again."