Can't let anything go | Part 1

The wife, the mother

The clock on the wall ticked, steady and indifferent, as if mocking the chaos unravelling in the room. Zerina sat on the edge of the couch, her hands gripping her knees tightly. She wondered why he was making coffee so early in the morning. She couldn’t sleep, so she fiddled with her phone on the sofa when he came downstairs wearing his navy blue shirt and jeans.

“-Why are you up so early?”

“I’m going to work. I need to finish the project. There’s a deadline, and I’m a bit behind.”

Then Liridon continued sipping his coffee, looking cold and distant. The silent walls have been growing thicker…

"I’m going alone this summer," he said, his voice flat, like a man announcing a weather report. Summers to his home country, an island for saving his hurt ego, his mind yearning for healing distraction, his body longing for passion with someone who considers him something different than an asshole.

Zerina looked up at him, expressionless, though her chest burned with a quiet fury that had been simmering for years. "Alone," she repeated, the word hanging between them heavy with implication. "Like you did two years ago?"

Liridon sighed, that long, weary sigh that implied she was the unreasonable one again. "Yes. Alone," he said, as if spelling it out would make it easier to swallow. "I need space. Time to clear my head."

Her laugh was sharp, cutting through the tension like a shard of ice. "Space?" she said, her voice laced with disbelief. "Clear your head? Or run off and waste more of our money pretending you’re someone else? Or with someone else? With some sluts that will make you feel like the coolest guy in the world, right? Mr. Cool guy! Just look at yourself! You are simply pathetic! "

His jaw tightened, his hand flexing by his side. "Don’t start," he said quietly, but his tone had an edge. Zerina provoked him; she wanted this badly, to make him mad and do stupid stuff. It's like breaking her neck or something dumb enough to file a complaint and kick him out with restriction. "Don’t start?" she shot back, standing now, her voice rising with every word. "You don’t start. Do you even hear yourself? Can you just take off again and leave me here to clean up the mess while you ‘clear your head’? Who gets to clear my head, huh? Or does that not matter?"

"You’re hysterical," Liridon said, his voice clipped, his eyes narrowing. "This is why I need space! You can’t let anything go. You turn everything into a fight."

"Hysterical??," she repeated, letting the word roll off her tongue like a bitter pill. "Is that what I am now? Hysterical? Because I’m trying to keep this family afloat while you play the tragic hero running from the life we built? You know your daughter ran miles away from here just to avoid this circus! And our son? He is as powerless as you are, trying to figure his life out and the high school he is barely coping with. Do you know this? Are you aware of any of this? Or running after sluts gets you more excited!"

His voice snapped like a whip. "Maybe I run because I can’t breathe here! You’re suffocating, always pointing fingers, always keeping score. You are simply paranoid!"

Her face flushed, her hands clenching at her sides. "You think I want to keep score?" she spat. "I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask you to give up on everything we worked for. Do you even see what you’re throwing away? Your kids barely know who you are anymore, and I’m…I’m tired, okay? I'm tired of being the only one who cares enough to stay. While you are fucking some whores and acting like the big man! You, fucking bastard!"

Liridon’s expression softened for a moment—just a flicker, quickly smothered by frustration. "Maybe it’s not all my fault," he said, quieter now, though no less sharp. "Maybe you should look at yourself instead of blaming me for everything wrong in your life."

Her breath caught, her lips parting in disbelief. "You’re a coward," she said finally. "You’ve always been a coward. Running away doesn’t make you brave. You are disgusting!"

He bent down to put his shoes on and took his keys."Your drama won’t change my mind," he said, his voice hollow now. "You can yell, cry, or whatever you need to do. It’s not going to change anything."

Zerina’s cheeks were burning with the heat of her fury. Her lips pressed into a thin line, trembling slightly as if they couldn’t decide whether to scream or stay silent. Her eyes were wild, blazing with anger and something more profound. Her breaths came in short, sharp bursts, filling the room with the sound of her barely contained rage.

Her hand shot out toward the open bag of coffee beans she spotted on the counter, the movement jerky and unrestrained, like a storm rolling over calm waters. Her fingers curled around the crinkled paper with a force that crumpled the edges, nails digging into the soft packaging as if punishing it for simply being there. Zerina's knuckles whitened against the dark background of the bag, veins standing out on her forearm as she raised it above her shoulder. Her whole body tensed, every muscle coiled like a spring, as she let out a guttural sound. Beans exploded in all directions, scattering like tiny, dark marbles across the kitchen tiles. Some skittered under the cabinets, and others rolled lazily to a stop against the baseboards. The air was thick with the rich, earthy aroma of coffee, intertwining with the crackling tension of her anger.

For a moment, Zerina stood frozen, her hands still poised mid-air as if she couldn’t quite believe what she had done. Her shoulders began to sag, but the fire in her eyes remained, now tinged with the faintest hint of remorse—or maybe just exhaustion.

With that, Laridon walked out. The door slammed behind him, punctuating a sentence neither could finish. It was 4:30 am when he left for work in the office. That was his place to escape this storm, the feeling of being drowned in a mess of darkness and hopelessness….

Zerina stood there, her body trembling, her eyes burning. As she sank back onto the couch, her hands limp in her lap, she realised the fight wasn’t just with him anymore. It was with the void he had left behind, the silence that had moved in where love used to be.

The nights were always the hardest. That was when the thoughts came, uninvited and relentless. They pulled up chairs in Zerina’s mind, filling the quiet with whispers of memories she didn’t want and accusations she couldn’t silence. At 43, life felt like a long, exhausting argument with herself—one she was losing. 

Liridon had been her first everything—the boy with the easy smile and the dark skin that caught the summer light, the lifeguard who made girls giggle and boys jealous of his confidence. And she’d been the quiet one, the girl who spoke too little, who melted every time he looked her way. They’d married young, barely out of their teens, full of dreams they didn’t know how to name yet. Together, they’d left behind their post-socialist shadows, clutching their US Green card like a golden ticket. Fifteen years in America had given them everything they’d once prayed for—a home, children that could have more life opportunities and a life that felt safe.

But surviving wasn’t the same as living; somewhere along the way, they’d forgotten how to do the latter. Love, the thing that had once made them brave, had turned into something brittle and sharp-edged. Liridon was still the man she loved, but he also had let her down. Again and again. Zerina hated him. But she loved him.

The paradox could keep a person awake at night, staring at the ceiling, trying to untangle the knot in their chest. Loving him felt like trying to hold water in her hands—impossible, infuriating, yet she couldn’t stop trying.

Zerina could shout at him until her throat was raw and hurled accusations that echoed off the walls of their home. She could list every way he had let her down, every promise he’d broken. And still, when the silence came, and anger gave way to that quiet ache in her chest, she knew she would stay. She didn’t know how to let this go.

When Zerina imagined him with another woman, it wasn’t just jealousy that tore through her—it was grief. A deep, hollow kind of grief that felt like mourning a life she was still living. She had given him everything. She had poured her love and energy into him, shaping his ambitions, softening his flaws, and building the life they’d both once dreamed of.

And now? Now Zerina felt like a book he’d half-read, left on a dusty shelf while he reached for something new. Something easier. Something that didn’t remember the late nights, the sacrifices, the cracks in the foundation they’d patched over together.

Zerina hated how easily she softened. How easily her body betrayed her the moment Don approached her in bed after days of heavy silence. He’d pull her close, not with an apology, but with the arrogance that said he knew she’d let him anyway. And he was right. Every time. Don knew she let him because the loneliness was louder than the anger. Her anger again would melt under his warm hands, his warm body longing for hers…His untouched, his one and only Zerina! Mother of his children…

But mornings always came. And with them, the cracks in their life deepened, spreading further with every sunrise. And though Zerina tried and fought, she knew she couldn’t hold it all together forever. Not when the person she was fighting for was pulling it apart.

The first light of dawn seeped through the curtains while Zerina was browsing on Facebook one last time before leaving for work. She was combing through any details on her husband’s timeline, and all his photos, all the images liked, all the friends Don had….Where was he going in the summer? Who was he heading to….

Zerina just couldn't stop thinking and wandering in the maze she was trapped in. Because if she stopped, she’d have to face the emptiness he’d left behind. And that was something she wasn’t ready to do.

End of part 1