Chapter Six: Broken Pieces
Heartbreak, Celine discovered, wasn't always loud.
Sometimes it was quiet.
Sometimes it just sat with you in silence, refusing to leave.
After Ben's betrayal, her world fell apart in pieces too small to count. Her bed, once a place of comfort, now felt like a prison. The lectures she used to attend with excitement became a blur of voices she couldn't follow. Food lost its taste. Music lost its meaning. Life lost its rhythm.
The girl who once walked with hope in her step had become a shadow of herself.
---
In her lowest moments, Ivy's face kept flashing through her mind like a cruel reminder. Ivy—the girl who had everything handed to her on a silver platter.
She wasn't just any random student.
Ivy came from money. The kind of money that turned heads and bought silence. Her father was a well-known oil magnate in Lagos. She drove a silver Mercedes to class like it was the most normal thing in the world. She wore imported perfumes, carried designer handbags, and wore sunglasses even when it rained.
Everywhere she went, attention followed.
But it wasn't just Ivy's wealth that made her dangerous.
It was her confidence. Her entitlement. She spoke like the world owed her something—and walked like it already did.
From the moment she transferred into their university, Ivy had made it clear she was above everyone else. And she never saw Celine as a threat. Why would she? To Ivy, Celine was just another simple, pretty girl from a modest background—too ordinary to matter.
But Celine mattered to Ben.
At least, she used to.
---
Now, lying in bed with swollen eyes and a broken spirit, Celine asked herself the same question over and over again:
Why wasn't I enough?
She had given him her everything—her first kiss, her body, her dreams. She had trusted him with her heart, and he had placed it at Ivy's feet like a secondhand gift.
It wasn't just the betrayal.
It was the humiliation.
The memory of seeing them together—that lingering hand on Ivy's waist, that private laugh they shared, the comfort between them that didn't look new.
How long had it been going on?
Had he already begun to fall for Ivy while still telling her "I love you"?
Had he used her innocence to pass time before Ivy showed interest?
These questions became her companions.
They whispered to her in class. They echoed through the hallways. They haunted her in her dreams.
---
"Celine, you have to snap out of this," Sandra, her roommate, said one afternoon, handing her a bowl of hot rice and stew. "You've lost weight. You look like you haven't slept in days."
Celine stared at the food but didn't touch it. "I'm just tired," she whispered.
"Tired doesn't mean starving yourself or missing every class for a week. Ben is not worth your breakdown."
Celine's lips quivered. "But I loved him. I thought I was his forever."
Sandra sat beside her, hugging her gently. "You were his everything—until someone with a car and a rich father showed up. That's not your fault. That's his weakness."
That sentence stayed with her long after Sandra left the room.
That's his weakness.
Not hers.
---
Later that night, Celine stood in front of the mirror for the first time in days. Her reflection startled her.
Her face looked pale, her lips dry, her eyes heavy with sadness. This wasn't the girl Ben had fallen in love with. This wasn't the girl who used to walk around campus with confidence in her stride. This wasn't her.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she whispered, "I want me back."
And that was the moment something shifted.
---
The next morning, she did something she hadn't done in weeks—she got up early, took a long bath, brushed her hair, and changed into a clean dress. She stepped out of the room and let the sun hit her skin.
Each step felt like carrying bricks.
But still… she moved.
She attended her classes quietly, eyes lowered, but ears open. When a lecturer asked a question, she raised her hand. Her voice was shaky, but she answered correctly. A few classmates clapped. It was a small thing. But for her, it was a mountain moved.
That night, she wrote in her journal again:
He left me broken, but I will not stay broken. I owe myself the love I once gave to him.
---
One Thursday afternoon, with a lingering headache from all the stress, Celine visited the campus clinic. The air was cool inside, the faint scent of antiseptic calming her nerves.
That's when she met him.
Dr. Nathan Okechukwu—a young medical intern, tall, clean-cut, with calm eyes and a gentle smile that seemed to understand things even before you spoke.
"Celine, right?" he asked, flipping through a folder.
She blinked. "How do you know my name?"
"You attended one of the reproductive health seminars last semester. I remember you asked a really insightful question."
She looked down shyly. "Oh. I didn't think anyone noticed."
"I did," Nathan said with a quiet certainty. "You stood out."
He took her vitals and asked her a few questions about her stress levels. His tone was professional, but warm. He didn't look at her like she was fragile. He didn't speak to her like she was pitiful.
He treated her like someone who mattered.
And that, for some reason, brought tears to her eyes when she returned to her hostel.
---
That night, she wrote again in her journal:
Maybe healing doesn't come in big moments. Maybe it comes in soft kindness. In being seen again. In being reminded of your worth—even by a stranger in a white coat.
---
In the weeks that followed, Celine didn't forget Ben.
But she stopped blaming herself.
She stopped checking Ivy's social media.
She stopped wondering if Ben would come back.
She stopped shrinking herself to make sense of someone else's choices.
She poured herself into her studies. She reconnected with her girlfriends. She started eating well. Her skin started glowing again. Her eyes regained their spark.
People began to notice.
But more importantly, she began to notice.
And when Nathan sent her a message one quiet evening—"Just checking in. Hope you're okay."—Celine smiled.
Not because she was ready to love again.
But because someone saw her.
And this time, she was beginning to see herself too.
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