Ethan and I had been together for exactly one year.
One year—just enough for me to believe we could go much further.
So when he held my hand and said:
“Come home with me this weekend. My parents are really nice. Don’t worry.”
I nodded, heart pounding with excitement and nerves.
Before we left, I carefully picked out the nicest fruit basket I could find.
Standing in front of his house, I gently adjusted the watch on my wrist—the one my mom had given me when I got into college.
The door opened. I smiled politely.
“Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m—”
CRASH!
The sound of a bowl shattering against the tile sliced through the air like a blade.
Ethan’s mother stood frozen, face drained of color, her eyes locked on… the watch on my wrist.
Before I could process anything, she flung a full glass of water straight into my face.
“G—Get out! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” she screamed, trembling with fury.
I stood there, stunned. Ethan rushed toward us.
“Mom, what are you doing?!”
His father hurried over, pulling her back and apologizing repeatedly.
“I’m… I’m so sorry. Let me explain—please don’t be afraid…”
But I couldn’t hear anything anymore. Shame, confusion, and humiliation crashed over me like a wave. My whole body shook.
Ethan ran after me as I fled the house.
“Wait! Please—stop! I don’t know what’s going on!”
I ran until my legs gave out.
That evening, the truth finally unraveled.
Ethan called, his voice thick with shock.
“I know now… it was the watch.”
I froze.
“My watch? What does it have to do with anything?”
“It’s not about your watch,” he said slowly.
“It’s about the person who used to wear it.”
He took a long breath and began.
Twenty-five years ago, Ethan’s father and my mother were deeply in love.
A young, tender love everyone thought would lead to marriage.
But Ethan’s grandparents refused to accept my mother—too poor, they said.
They forced his father to marry someone else.
The woman he married… was Ethan’s mother.
On the day they were torn apart, Ethan’s father gave my mother that exact watch—a final keepsake of a love that never had the chance to bloom.
And Ethan’s mother…
She had lived for decades with the bitter fear that she had never truly been her husband’s first choice.
So when she saw that watch on my wrist, she recognized it instantly.
She thought I wore it on purpose.
She thought I came into her home to taunt her with the ghost of a woman she could never erase.
Her rage wasn’t sudden.
It had been waiting for twenty-five years.
I sat there speechless, the truth chilling me.
It wasn’t my fault.
It wasn’t even her fault.
It was a wound that had never healed.
Ethan spoke softly:
“I’m sorry… I should’ve known. I had no idea fate would twist things like this.”
I swallowed the ache building in my chest.
Our one-year love…
shattered by a watch
—by a love story that existed long before I did.
Ethan still wanted to stay together.
He said he’d talk to his mother.
He said he’d protect me.
But I asked him only one thing:
“Do you think… I’m strong enough to walk into a house haunted by a shadow that’s been there for twenty-five years?”
He didn’t answer.
The silence stretched so long that I could hear our future cracking apart.
Only the watch—the relic of a past generation—kept ticking steadily.
As if it had never caused a storm at all.
