Paul never came back. His things were goneempty hangers in the wardrobe, a note scribbled on a scrap of paper left on the bedside table: *Couldnt take it. Sorry.*
When Katy fell ill, the world didnt crumbleit just stopped breathing.
At first, it was fatigue and aching limbs, then a fever no pills or injections could touch. Soon, pain flared in her chest like a hot iron rod twisting slowly inside. She lay on the sofa, wrapped in a duvet, staring at the ceiling, wondering: *Is this just flu? Or something worse?*
That evening, Paul came home late. He shrugged off his coat, tossed his keys onto the sideboard, and without glancing at her, asked:
“Youre lying down again? Dishes arent done. The place is a mess.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I cant get up.”
He sighed like it was her faultbeing ill, being weak, ruining his evening.
“Fine. Im having a shower.”
He didnt touch her, didnt hold her.
She stayed silent. She didnt even have the strength to resent him.
The next day, she was taken to hospital. The diagnosis was grim: bilateral pneumonia, complicated by viral infection, suspected autoimmune involvement. The doctors spoke briskly, clinically, but in their eyes, Katy saw the unspoken: *This could go badly.*
She asked a nurse for her phone to call Paul.
He didnt answer.
She called again an hour later. Then again. And again.
On the fourth try, he picked up. His voice was flat, like shed woken him from something important.
“What?”
“Paul Im in hospital. Its serious. I need”
He cut her off.
“Im at work, Katy. Not now.”
“But Im scared”
“Youre a grown woman. Doctors are there. What, you want me to drop everything and run to you?”
She went quiet. A lump rose in her throat.
“Alright,” she murmured. “Sorry for bothering you.”
He said nothing. Just hung up.
The third day in hospital.
Katy lay with an IV in her arm, watching the grey sky through the windowwet pavement, lone figures in raincoats. The ward was silent except for the ticking clock and the hum of the air vent.
She tried Paul again. Ringing. Still ringing.
Then her wardmate said:
“Dont call him. Hes gone. Left his keys with me.”
“Gone? Where?”
“Didnt say. Just packed his things and left.”
Katy shut her eyes. Something in her chest snappednot her heart, but something invisible, fragile, that had tied her to him for years.
She didnt cry. She didnt have the strength.
On the seventh day, her mum arrived.
She burst into the ward with bags and a look that said shed tear the hospital down if anyone hurt her daughter.
“That absolute coward!” she spat when she saw Katy. “How could he?”
Katy tried to smile, but it was weak.
“Mum”
“Shh. Im here now.”
Her mum stayed. Slept on a camp bed by her side, brought homemade soup in a thermos, argued with doctors for better meds.
“Youre not alone,” she repeated every morning. “Youre not alone, love.”
For the first time in ages, Katy believed it.
Discharge.
Three weeks later, she was releasedthin, weak, shadows under her eyes, but alive.
At home, everything was as shed left it. Dust, stale air, dirty dishes. Paul hadnt returned. His things were gone. Empty hangers. The note on the sideboard:
*Couldnt take it. Sorry.*
Katy stared at the words, then crumpled the note and tossed it away.
Her mum helped clean, air out the rooms.
“Fresh start,” she said.
Katy nodded.
The first month after illness.
She could barely walk. Breathing was hard. But every day, she took ten steps more than yesterday. Then twenty. Soon, she made it to the balcony, then the garden.
Work called. Asked when shed return.
“Soon,” she said.
Though she didnt know if she ever would.
Returning.
Six weeks later, she walked into the office. Colleagues watched her carefullylike she was china they might break.
“So good to have you back!” her manager said, hugging her.
Katy smiled. For the first time in months, it was real.
Work became her lifeline. It let her forget the pain, the hollowness in her chest, the man whod left when she needed him most.
In the evenings, she wrote in her journal. No complaintsjust facts:
*”Walked three blocks without wheezing today.
Ate a whole apple.
Didnt think about him.”*
Autumn.
Leaves fell. Katy bought a new coatdeep red, the colour of life, not sickness.
She started yoga. Then photography classes. Saturdays, she went to the library.
Her life wasnt perfect. But it was hers.
One evening, passing a shop window, she saw a small stained-glass horsevibrant, delicate.
She stopped.
As a child, shed dreamed of horses. A white mare with a cloud-like mane. Her parents laughed: *”Weve got a garden, not a ranch!”* But once, her dad brought home a wooden carvingrough, but kind-eyed.
Katy bought the glass horse.
“Its a symbol,” the shopkeeper said. “Freedom. Strength.”
“I know,” Katy smiled.
Winter.
Paul called in December.
“Katy can we talk?”
She said nothing.
“I didnt know it was that bad. Thought it was just a cold. Then I was ashamed. Didnt know how to come back.”
She watched the snow outside.
“You didnt come back, Paul. You vanished. When I was terrifiedyou werent there.”
“I know. Im sorry.”
“Sorry isnt something you just get. You earn it. And you didnt even try.”
Silence.
“I miss you,” he whispered.
“I dont,” she said. “I miss who you couldve been. But you werent him.”
She hung up.
Her heart didnt ache. Not even a little.
Spring.
Katy sold the old furniture, bought new. Adopted a black cat with green eyes. Named her Blossom.
She started writing storiesabout illness, about horses, about women learning to breathe again.
Her mum visited weekends. They drank tea, laughed at old films.
“Youre glowing,” her mum said once.
“Am I?”
“Like someone lit a lamp inside you.”
Katy smiled.
“Maybe because Im not afraid of the dark anymore.”
Summer.
She visited a childhood friend in the countrysidefields, a river, a stable.
On the first day, she approached a chestnut horse with warm eyes.
“Can I?” she asked the stablehand.
“Go on,” he said. “Just dont be scared.”
She mounted. The horse moved. Wind in her face, grass underfoot, sky above.
Katy closed her eyes.
For the first time in years, she didnt just feel aliveshe felt free.
Epilogue.
A year passed.
Katy didnt think of Paul. No hatred, no longingjust absence. He was a chapter. Painful, dark, but closed.
She wasnt looking for love. But she wasnt afraid of it, either.
She lived.
And that, truly, was her victory.
*”Sometimes people leave not because youre unworthy of love,
but because they dont know how to stay when it matters.
So you learn to stay for yourself.
And thatis enough.”*
