I've been married for 13 years to the man I love. I thought this marriage would flood me with happiness and tenderness — yet I've become delusional myself. Being careless about my self-esteem, it’s all burned out to the point that I forgo my own feelings.

Thirteen years, four months, and fourteen days, four thousand and eight hundred fifty-three total days since we are bonded together by heaven, but on New Year's Eve, Johann didn’t celebrate with me.

I was left alone in the house, celebrating in the midst of the hurt created by this mistaken marriage, as the fireworks started to ignite above the sky, the light reflected on the window, and the caress went through my skin. The inevitable weakness drowned me when tears welled up.

While the dining table is set with the dishes that Johann and I are supposed to share. Where now cold as plain, same with the relationship we have. Every swallow of my own cooking is like a sharp blade that slashing through my throat.

I can’t resist but to let this broken heart of mine suffer from this oblivious ill will marriage; every noise of igniting fireworks is the same with the amount of tears I drop on my cold food.

I restrained myself from eating at the midway as I reached my phone beside the table. As the start of this fresh year, I opened my phone, and tried to call his number to greet him with my utmost happy new year, but every eerie sound of the ring was like an endless cycle of suffering and hardship I have had.

I ended up being uncalled, seamlessly tormented in that moment, I felt perilously close to losing my sanity as the drowning weight of hurtful words played on my head, saying: “Useless Partner.”

Every repetition of those words reminds me of being worthless as a partner to Johann; every tear, every ache, is like a movie playing relentlessly, mocking me at the depths.

Despite that, I still clung to holding on to this one-sided love; the only carriage I have left is the only thing holding me into this marriage, and it was my everlasting love towards him, even if it causes a maim of pain, I still love him.

“Do you really still love him? Or I’m just stuck with 18-year-old Johann that I used to love?” I question myself, swallowing the agony of bittersweet torture.

I handed my phone again, but the weakness in my hands is visibly clear, and the tears won’t stop like a stream of a river. As I thought of not calling him again, I intendedly to text him instead, saying: “Happy New Year.”

Those words were seemingly happy when you read them, but the one who sent them was floating in the abyssal sorrow. I strive to wait for his greeting, but I was left with nothing less.

After a few moments of silence, I drove myself away from the table and walked around the house where we used to shelter our love, every corner of this structure, where reminded of him being with me as a newlywed and as a happy couple.

While my eyes wildered across the room, I happened to stop when I foresaw the wedding picture of Johann and me in the corner. I tried to reach it using my bare hands, but it slid off in my carelessness. I hurriedly picked it up in panic, but the fixed picture frame is now a broken frame.