Chapter 63: The Last Goodbye

Aveline pov

The ride to the hospital felt like an endless journey.

I was literally frozen, my phone still clutched in my trembling hand. The call had ended minutes ago, but I couldn't bring myself to put the device away. My fingers were locked around it so tightly. It felt as if I moved or breathed too hard the words would suddenly solidify and become real.

Asher is dead.

No. They were wrong. They had to be wrong. Doctors make mistakes all the time. Monitors glitched. People didn't just stop breathing. Not Asher. Not my twin brother. Not the boy who was supposed to wake up and complain about how much his head hurt.

Beside me, my mother gripped the steering wheel so hard. Tears flowed down her cheeks, but she never once slowed down. She drove like a woman possessed, weaving through the traffic with a reckless desperation.

Neither of us spoke. There was absolutely nothing left to say. The world had ended ten minutes ago on the road, and we were just the ghosts riding in its wreckage.

When we finally arrived at the hospital's emergency bay, Evelyn practically stumbled out of the car.

"Mom...."

My voice was a pathec, but she didn't hear me. She was already running, and I followed her.

The bright fluorescent hospital lights hit my eyes like physical blows. Everything about this place felt so wrong to me now

A doctor in blue scrubs met us halfway down the corridor. The moment I saw his face, the tiny bit of hope I was holding onto snapped. Doctors never looked like that when there was a chance. They never held their clipboards that close to their chest, or lowered their shoulders in that heavy, defeated slump when they had good news.

"I'm very sorry for your loss," he said, his voice quiet and practised.

My mother made a broken, inhuman sound. "No."

The doctor lowered his head, unable to hold her gaze. "We did everything we could. His heart simply"

"No!"

Her scream echoed fiercely through the hallway, sharp and piercing. Several nurses and waiting patients turned to look at us. She didn't care. Neither did I. The opinions of strangers meant nothing. Because somewhere behind those heavy double doors was my brother. And for the first time in my life, I was utterly terrified to see him.

The doctor gently guided us down another corridor, his hand resting lightly on my mother's trembling shoulder. Then, he stopped outside a door.

Slowly, the door swung open.

My heart stopped. Asher was lying on the hospital bed. He was completely still and silent. The life support machines had been turned off, for a delusional second, I actually waited for him to sit up. I waited for him to laugh, to roll his eyes, and to tell us that this was all some horrible, twisted misunderstanding to teach us a lesson.

But he didn't move.

He looked peaceful His skin was pale, stripped of the warmth he used to carry. It looked like he was sleeping and if I walked over, shook his shoulder hard enough, and yelled his name, he would wake up and complain about me waking him up.

My mother collapsed beside the bed, A ragged sob tore from her, raw and agonising. She grabbed his right hand immediately, pressing it against her face.

"Asher," she wept, her voice cracking into pieces.

"Asher, baby. Please. Wake up. Mommy's here."

Nothing. No response. The room remained suffocatingly silent.

I stood frozen near the doorway, my back pressed against the wall. I was unable to move, unable to cry, and unable to breathe. I felt like an intruder in a stranger's tragedy. I knew that if I stepped closer, if I actually looked at him, it would become a reality I couldn't escape. And I wasn't ready for a reality without Asher.

My mother pressed her forehead against his unmoving arm. "My son," she rocked back and forth, her grief swallowing the room whole. "My beautiful boy. My baby."

I looked away My chest ached, Everything hurt.

Eventually, two nurses gently walked into the room and guided Evelyn outside. She refused at first, pulling away and screaming his name, but her strength was entirely gone. She finally allowed them to lead her into a private waiting area.

The moment the door clicked closed behind her, a heavy, silence filled the room.

Just me and Asher. For the first time in months.

My weak legs finally moved, dragging me toward the side of the bed. Up close, he looked the same. We had shared that exact face once. Twins.

I reached out and took his left hand. "You idiot," my voice came out broken, a pathetic whisper. "You were supposed to wake up."

I laughed bitterly, "You promised me, Ash. You always kept your promises."

Suddenly, the childhood memories came rushing into my mind, him stealing my fries at the diner when we were ten, laughing as I tried to punch his arm. I remembered him patiently holding the back of my seat, teaching me how to ride a bike without training wheels.

The tears finally came in "I wore your clothes," I sobbed, my voice shaking uncontrollably as I stared at our joined hands. "I took your name. I went to your school. I became you, Ash. I never even asked for your permission."

The guilt crushed me, Every lie I had told, every single moment I spent loving that pretentious arrogant guy, Kirean. I hated myself for it while he lay dying in this bed it all felt like a betrayal. And now he was gone. Permanently.

"I'm sorry, Ash," I wept, lowering my head "I'm so sorry." I cried until my chest was empty, mourning the boy who had deserved a full life.

Hours later, we left the hospital. The next few days passed

People came and went through our front door like shifting shadows. Casseroles and flowers arrived from neighbours we barely knew. Distant relatives called,

Plates of food appeared on the kitchen tables, untouched, gathering dust until they grew cold.

And through it all, my mother changed.

She stopped sleeping. She barely ate a bite of food. She spent endless hours sitting on the floor of the living room, surrounded by old photo albums, staring at pictures of Asher. She talked about him constantly, remembering his childhood milestones, missing his laughter, crying over his lost future. Everything in our universe became entirely about Asher. I was just a ghost of her sorrow.

One evening, I found her sitting alone in his bedroom. The room was dark. She was holding one of his old hockey clothes.

I stood quietly in the doorway, hesitant to disturb her. "Mom?"

She looked up slowly. For a brief, heartbreaking second, she seemed genuinely surprised that I was even in the house. Then, her eyes dull, she returned her gaze to the clothes.

"He deserved better than this," she whispered, her voice rough.

I didn't answer. I just leaned against the doorframe.

"He deserved more time, Aveline. He had so much potential."

Still, I said nothing.

Then, she looked directly at me. I watched the sorrow in her eyes shift. Something inside her hardened,

"Aveline," she said,

My stomach twisted "Yes?"

Her grip tightened around the cloth "Don't stop.

I frowned, stepping into the room. "What?"

She stood up slowly, "Don't stop what you are doing."

I stared at her, completely stunned. She stepped closer to me, her breathing shallow.

"Find them," she commanded, the words shocked me to my core.

"Mom..."

"Find every single person who put him in that hospital bed," her voice began to shake, tears spilling over her eyes, but this time they weren't tears of sadness. They were born of pure anger. "Expose them. Make them answer for what they did to my boy."

I just stood there, unable to process the whole thing. A few days ago, she had slapped me across the face, desperate to run to Crestwood and expose my lies to save his reputation. Now, Asher was gone, and her grief had mutated into a terrifying, unyielding rage. She didn't want to protect his future anymore. She wanted revenge as well.