"THE ROOM LEFT BEHIND"

LATER that night, Isla stood silently at the threshold of Matthew’s room, watching her son sleep. The soft rise and fall of his small chest brought her comfort, yet the ache inside her only deepened. She quietly walked over to his bed and knelt beside him, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. The room was silent, save for the soft sounds of his breathing.

“Baby,” Isla whispered, her voice fragile, breaking as she spoke the words that had weighed on her heart for so long. “Why can’t I give you the life you deserve?”

She pressed her fingers gently against his cheek, the tears she had held back threatening to spill. She had tried so hard to be everything Matthew needed, but deep down, she feared she hadn’t given him enough. Not the life she had envisioned for him, filled with opportunities and love without the weight of their struggles.

*****

VINCENT sat across from his mother in the softly lit dining room, the ambient hum of the city just outside their window, but his mind felt miles away. Ruby’s questions floated in the air, each one carrying a curiosity that Vincent had expected. She had always been the practical one, and her concern for his decisions had never wavered.

"So, you're staying here for good?" Ruby asked, her eyes narrowing slightly as she leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. "Why not start your own restaurant? Why do you need to buy someone else's property? Is it bankrupt?" Her voice was a mix of skepticism and genuine curiosity, typical of her when she didn’t quite understand a decision Vincent had made.

Vincent couldn’t help but smile softly at his mother’s persistence. She was the kind of woman who valued independence above all else, and in a way, he respected that. But for him, this move wasn’t about starting from scratch—it was about building on something that had already made a name for itself.

 "I don’t see anything wrong with it, Mama," he replied, swirling the wine in his glass before taking a deliberate sip. "Festive is a well-known restaurant. And no, it’s not bankrupt. The owner just can't manage it anymore, so they decided to sell."

Ruby’s laughter filled the room, a familiar sound that always put Vincent at ease, even if the question behind it made him squirm. "You’re a well-known chef in America. You wouldn't have trouble making your own name here if you wanted to," she teased, her voice light but with an underlying note of concern.

Vincent looked at her for a moment, the weight of her words sinking deeper than he let on. She was right, of course. He had the skills, the reputation, the experience to carve out his own path. But his decision wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about proving anything to anyone.

"I’ve made my decision, Ma," he said, his voice steady, his gaze unwavering. "I have a meeting with the CEO of Festive in two days."

His mother studied him for a moment, her eyes softening as she sensed the resolve in his tone. She opened her mouth to speak, but Vincent stood up before she could say anything more. "I'm going to sleep now," he said, his voice quiet, as if he didn’t want to say anything further on the matter. He bowed his head briefly to Ruby, a simple but respectful gesture, and planted a soft kiss on her cheek. "Goodnight," he said softly, his voice betraying no hint of the storm swirling inside him.

As Vincent walked towards his bedroom, he passed by a familiar door—one that led to the guest room. The memories came flooding back like a tidal wave. His steps faltered, his heart skipping a beat as his gaze lingered on the door. The room was silent, the light dimmed, but it felt as though Isla’s presence was still there, as if she were waiting on the other side, just out of reach.

Vincent stood motionless, his body leaning slightly against the doorframe, the weight of the past pressing against him with an intensity that felt suffocating. His chest rose and fell with each breath, shallow and strained as memories he had long tried to bury resurfaced in waves. The room around him seemed to blur as his mind traveled back to a time when Isla was the center of his world. The woman who had once captivated him, challenged him, and ultimately, left him, was still there in his thoughts, haunting him even after all these years.

"Isla, Miss Beautiful," he whispered under his breath, the name slipping past his lips like a fragile secret.

The sound of her name carried the weight of a thousand emotions—longing, regret, and the bitter taste of lost opportunities. He closed his eyes briefly, as though the darkness behind his eyelids could shield him from the sting of those memories. He had thought time would make it easier to forget, but the ache in his chest proved otherwise. It was as if her presence had never truly left him, lingering like a shadow, stretching across the years.

The words felt bitter on his tongue, as if they were laced with a poison that still had the power to hurt. "Why is it so hard to forget you?"

The question slipped from his lips like a quiet plea, but he already knew the answer. Forgetting Isla wasn’t something he could force; she was too ingrained in his heart, too entwined in the life he had once imagined for himself. Even when he had tried to move on, there had always been a part of him that remained tethered to her, unwilling to sever the connection that had been forged in their shared history.

The silence in the hallway was deafening as the question hung in the air, unanswered and unresolved. Years had passed since he last saw her, but the wound she had left in his heart still festered, never fully healing. It was a constant reminder of what they had lost, of the love that had slipped through their fingers like sand. The ache in his chest only seemed to grow more intense with time, a painful reminder that forgetting her wasn’t an option. The more he tried to let go, the more the memories resurfaced, each one a dagger to his heart.

"Why can't I let you go?" he whispered again, his voice cracking slightly, betraying the vulnerability he had spent so long trying to hide.

The words seemed to reverberate in the quiet of the night, a cry of frustration and longing that echoed within him. His grip on the doorframe tightened, his knuckles turning white, as if he could somehow anchor himself in the present by holding on to the physical world around him. But it didn’t work. The past was always there, just beyond his reach, tugging him back, reminding him of everything he had lost and could never reclaim.

Vincent let out a heavy sigh, the sound escaping from deep within him, as though the weight of his emotions had become too much to bear. His shoulders slumped, the tension that had been building in his chest finally spilling over. He knew, deep down, that his past with Isla was over—that chapter of his life had been closed, sealed shut by time and circumstance. But the pain of it, the lingering heartache, refused to let him go. Even though he had tried to move forward, to rebuild his life, the shadow of Isla’s memory still loomed large, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that part of him would always be stuck in the past, caught in the web of what might have been.