Chapter 150

Chapter 150
If there was anyone who better understood the word scared it was Olivia.

She had watched him risk his life a hundred times before. And every single time, her heart forgot how to beat.

But she couldn’t tell him that every mission he went on felt like watching him walk away from her with no promise of return. That every goodbye carried the weight of what if it’s the last one.

However, as much as she hated how often he threw himself into danger, she could never truly resent it.

It was a part of him.

It was stitched into his bones, carved into his choices, written in the very way he lived. He didn’t run from danger. He walked straight into it as if it were simply another path meant for him.

He chose the military, and with that choice came missions that didn’t promise safety. And she understood that kind of choice more than most.

Because she had made one too.

Hospitals were not battlefields, but they came close. Blood still stained her hands. Lives slipped through her fingers no matter how tight she held on to them.

She had chosen that life. Just like he had chosen his. Maybe that was why she never asked him to stop. Because asking him to walk away from danger would mean asking him to stop being himself.

And she knew painfully well that she couldn’t do that to him. Even if it meant living with this kind of fear every day.

Loving him meant she would always be scared. And still, she would never choose differently.

Olivia stopped avoiding his gaze, and finally let herself drown in the depths of his dark eyes.

There was so much she wanted to say to him, enough to fill all the spaces in the world, yet none of it could escape the tightness in her throat.

Some feelings were simply too fragile to survive being spoken aloud. But if he could only read her eyes then maybe he would understand.

“Olivia?”

Clayton's hand rose to her cheek. She felt every hardened line beneath his fingertips. His hands were not gentle by nature but when they touched her, they were always impossibly tender.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” she whispered instinctively, lifting her own hand to her cheek. Her fingers came away damp.

She was crying.

Hell.

She almost laughed. Her own body had betrayed her.

Maybe it was hormones.

“Why are you crying?” he asked more gently this time.

A small, shaky laugh escaped her lips. “I don’t even know.” It was the truth. She had no idea why she was crying.

Before she could stop herself, more tears spilled.

His arms pulled her into his chest, shielding her from every pain she had endured.

“You’ve been through a lot today,” he murmured into her hair. His hand moved up and down her back in a consoling manner. “It’s not easy to perform a four-hour surgery… and then watch someone try to kill the patient you fought so hard to save. You must be drained and exhausted.”

That must be it. Mental exhaustion, Olivia told herself. That had to be the reason she had become such a crybaby lately.

“I’m sorry, Olivia.”

She frowned and pulled back just enough to look at him. Gently, he brushed away the dampness on her cheeks with the back of his palm.

“I wish I could be there for you during the moments you need me the most,” he added softly.

There was guilt in his eyes as though he truly believed he had failed her somehow.

Olivia didn’t understand why he was apologizing. None of what had happened today was his fault. As much as she longed for him to be by her side, she knew it was impossible. He had duties he couldn’t simply abandon, just as she had responsibilities she couldn’t neglect.

Their work demanded more from them than they were often able to give each other.

And yet, despite knowing that, a small part of her still wished she could spend more time with him, hold on to whatever moments they had left, no matter how fleeting.

Because after the divorce, everything would change.

Their lives would soon drift apart. The moments they shared together under the same roof, even simply being in each other’s presence—those, too, might become things of the past.

They might not even see each other again. He might become nothing more than a beautiful memory she would have to learn to live without.

At that thought, Olivia slowly pulled away from him.

Her fingers lingered against the front of his shirt for a second, curled loosely in the fabric, before she let go. She lowered her head, embarrassed by how easily she had fallen apart in his arms.

Without a word, she reached for the small box of Kleenex sitting on the nearby table. She dabbed carefully beneath her eyes, drying the last traces of tears, then pressed the tissue against her nose with a soft exhale.

“I’m okay now,” she told him.

Clayton looked as though he wanted to question her until she admitted to her lie.

But, surprisingly, he didn’t.

That was something Olivia both admired and found quietly frustrating about him. He often looked as though he was about to say something, or do something, only to choose the complete opposite instead. It made him difficult to figure out.

At times, she found his restraint almost maddening.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked one final time.

“Yes,” she replied.

The silence that followed was unbearable. It felt worse than when she had cried in front of him, like a child who had slipped and scraped her knee.

She lowered her gaze to the floor and prayed for the door to open, for someone, anyone, to walk in and break the fragile, suffocating space they were trapped in.

A minute passed. Then another. Then another. That was when she realized no one was going to break the silence for them.

If anything was going to move this forward, it had to be her.