His Mum Told Him To Choose. He Chose Wrong.

His mum never liked me. I knew this from early on, and I want to be fair — the dislike was about things I couldn't change. I'm not from the same state as them. My family isn't like his family. I have opinions. I'd said once at a family gathering that I planned to keep working after marriage and the silence that followed was the kind that gets remembered.

Ridhwan is the eldest son. In his family that comes with weight.

His mum had the big conversation with him last Ramadan.

He called me after, voice small. She'd told him she felt like I was pulling him away from the family. That she was worried about what our home would look like. That she wanted to know, before Raya, that he was choosing his family first.

"She wants me to end it," he said.

I asked him what he wanted.

Long silence. Then: "I can't lose my family, Liyana. I'm sorry."

I said okay. I said I understood, even though I didn't — I understood the words but I couldn't understand how someone who said he loved me for two years could let go in one phone call from his mother. I said goodbye. I didn't cry until after I hung up.

That Raya was quiet for me. I went back to my family, smiled through all the open houses, didn't tell most people what happened. Ridhwan messaged me on the first day of Raya — just "Selamat Hari Raya, maaf zahir batin." I stared at it for ten minutes and didn't reply.

Six months later, he texted again.

Not an apology at first — just "Liyana, how are you?" Like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't ended things while I was standing in my kitchen making Milo.

Then a longer message. About how his mum had "softened." About how he had been doing a lot of thinking. About how he missed me and had made a mistake. Could we talk?

My friend Khadijah read it and said: "Block dia."

My other friend Suraya said: "Hear him out la."

I'm somewhere in the middle, which is exhausting.

Because here's the thing — I do understand family pressure. Ridhwan isn't a bad person. I think he was scared, and he made a scared person's choice, and now the fear has settled and he wants back in.

But the choice he made was real. He chose the ultimatum over the conversation. He let me go without even trying to find another way. And now six months later he comes back as if "mum softened" fixes what that moment said about where I stood in his life.

Another Raya is coming. He hasn't stopped texting. I still haven't replied.