Chapter 92: A FUTURE THAT COULD NEVER BE MINE

Anna's POV

I stood by the hospital window, my legs shaking violently beneath me as I gripped the cold, metal pole of the rolling IV stand that held my dripping fluid bag. The nurse had just walked out of the room, leaving me alone with news that I didn't even know how to process.

The baby was fine. But I was instructed to be infinitely more careful.

I stared blankly out the glass, a heavy, suffocating knot tightening in my chest. Should I even be happy about this? This baby was going to completely ruin my life. I had a whole future ahead of me, but instead, I had let a single, ugly moment of jealousy and burning anger destroy absolutely everything. I had allowed Seth to drag me straight down into his personal hell, and now I was expected to carry and give birth to this child when its own father didn't give a single fuck about its existence.

I mean, he had literally murdered his own ex-wife despite knowing full well she was pregnant with his child. What would he do to someone like me?

I wanted out of this. I desperately, truly wanted to call it quits and run away. My mother could never find out about my involvement in any of this chaos. She could never, ever know that I played a part in Alda's death.

More than anything else in the world, I wanted to march straight into a police station right now and disclose everything. But the sheer terror paralyzed me; I lacked the confidence to do it. Dragging Seth down meant dragging myself straight down to prison with him. How on earth did I mess up my life this badly? What was I thinking all this time when I turned my back against my absolute best friend?

My hands moved down to my still-trembling stomach as a shaky, weak cry finally escaped my lips.

The phantom pain was still lingering there, and it only forced me to remember what I had done to Alda—how I had stood by even when I knew pretty damn well she was carrying a child of her own. And now, this was my karma. I had to deal with the horror of it. I kept seeing her everywhere—in my darkest dreams, every single time I closed my eyes, every time I was left alone in the quiet. I could feel her presence stalking among the shadows of this room, just waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

A violent, icy shiver ran straight from my core into my stomach, and a sharp cry of raw agony erupted from my throat. I was so weak. I was starving. And no matter how hard I tried to breathe, I kept smelling the metallic, nauseating odor of blood radiating from my own body.

A sudden, sharp pressure hit me, and I desperately needed to use the bathroom, yet looking across the room, I couldn't even imagine making it to the door of my ward.

Forcing my body around, I managed to face it. The bathroom seemed so close, yet it felt miles away. My grip around the moving iron pole tightened until my knuckles turned white as I took my first agonizing step forward. But the moment my foot hit the floor, a brutal eruption of pain ripped through my lower abdomen, followed by the terrifying sensation of a hot liquid running rapidly down my legs.

I looked down at the loose hospital pants I was wearing. The white checkered fabric was instantly stained a deep, horrifying crimson as the blood began dropping down my legs, splattering and staining the clean floor beneath me. A panicked gasp tore from my lips. I needed to call the nurse. I needed help.

“Aaaaah!” A piercing cry tore from my throat as my knees began to shake uncontrollably. But there was no one there to hear me. In my state of pure panic, I couldn't even hear the volume of my own voice.

I tried to take just one more step, but my legs completely gave out beneath me, and I came crashing heavily to the ground. A more shocking, blinding pain flared through my entire body as my stomach hit the hard floor. I laid there, completely helpless, and silently cried into the cold tile as the world began moving in dizzying, terrifying circles before my eyes.

The pain I was feeling was completely out of this world. I felt myself slipping rapidly, drifting back and forth from consciousness to absolute unconsciousness. At the very last moment, as my eyelids became too heavy to hold open, I managed to hear a chaotic flurry of muffled voices rushing into the room before the heavy, suffocating darkness clouding around my vision took over completely.

Alda's POV

I sat quietly across the dining table, my eyes tracking Xender as he moved effortlessly around the kitchen, preparing brunch for the two of us. I honestly couldn't believe we had spent half the day wrapped up in bed, completely lost in each other's arms.

Watching him now, it made me ache for a future I knew I could never actually have. He was just standing there by the stove in his sweatpants, bare-chested with only a cooking apron wrapped around his waist. It was a beautiful, domestic sight—the exact kind of life I once thought I would have in my marriage. But instead, my marriage to Seth had become my worst, most violent nightmare.

“I will serve you in just a minute,” Xender called out from over the kitchen counter, a bright, genuine smile lighting up his face.

His confession from earlier this morning had caught me completely off guard. I never, in a million years, would have thought he actually loved me. I thought I was the only one who had to silently suffer and deal with the weight of my feelings, but when he told me he loved me... I couldn't even bring myself to say the words back to him.

Moving away from the table, I quietly walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him tightly. I pressed my forehead against his broad back, leaning into his skin and loving the way his bare warmth heated up my face.

“It smells so good,” I murmured, leaning into him as the scent of the steak filled the air.

“I was just about to bring it over to you,” he said, his deep voice vibrating against my cheek. His large hand moved down, gently caressing mine where they were locked around his waist before he turned around in my arms to face me. He held a bit of the steak sauce on his pinky finger, bringing it up to my lips with an amused expression. “But since you're here, how about you help me check the taste? I feel like I've completely lost my cooking skills.”

I didn't hesitate. I closed my mouth around his finger, welcoming the rich, savory taste that hit my tongue. But before I could even open my mouth to respond, Xender leaned down and captured my lips in a deep, intoxicating kiss.

His tongue slipped effortlessly into my mouth, letting us taste each other for a blissful moment before he slowly pulled away. His dark, amused gaze rested on my face while I stood there, completely breathless, trying to recover from the sudden rush of the kiss.

“Now that tastes so good,” he teased softly.

The comment made a bright blush creep all the way up my neck. I leaned forward and pressed a quick, soft kiss to his lips to hide my burning cheeks.

“If you don't turn off the gas right now, we might as well be eating a burnt steak,” I said, trying to sound teasing as I called his attention back to the food on the stove.

He immediately slipped away to turn off the burner while I grabbed the plates from the counter. Once the food was fully served, we both sat down at the table to eat. But as the minutes passed, I constantly caught Xender staring at me from across the table. Every single time I looked up, his eyes were locked on mine. Finally, I set my fork down.

“It seems like you have something you want to say to me,” I said, chewing a piece of the steak.

“Did you visit Anna at the hospital yesterday?”

I froze completely. The question hung heavily in the air between us. For a long, tense moment, I couldn't even breathe, before I forced myself to resume eating as if the question hadn't shaken me to my core.

“Yes,” I replied coldly, intentionally avoiding his gaze as I cut into my food. “I needed to satisfy my curiosity. I needed to make sure she was still alive... because death would be far too fair of a punishment for her. Honestly, seeing her trapped in the exact same miserable situation I was in about six months ago just makes me want to celebrate.”

“You were hurt, Alda,” Xender said softly, his voice full of a gentle caution.

“I was killed, Xender!” I snapped, the anger finally breaking through my calm facade as I pushed myself violently to my feet, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. “They didn't just hurt me. He brutally murdered my parents, while Anna—the girl who was supposed to be my absolute best friend—slept with him and actively helped him capture me. She stood right there and watched him push me off that cliff!”

My voice shook, a bitter, protective anger completely masking the deep agony underneath. I had been enjoying the morning so much, until he had to bring them back into our space.

“Thank you for the food,” I said quietly, my throat tightening. “I had better start preparing to go to the hospital and see if Elba is finally awake.”

I turned around, intending to storm past him and out of the dining room, but before I could take a single step, Xender reached out. He caught my hand, gently but firmly pulling me straight down onto his lap, wrapping his strong arms around me and hugging me tightly against his bare chest.

“I'm so sorry I didn't believe you all this time, Alda,” he whispered into my hair, his voice thick with a raw, painful emotion. “I'm so sorry I never truly understood your pain. I'm sorry about everything. I just... I want to see you smile without that freezing coldness lurking in your eyes, even though I know you're trying so hard to hide it from me.”

He tightened his grip around my waist, burying his face in my shoulder. “I want to carry all that pain away from you, Alda. I really, really want to, but I don't know how. I absolutely hate it when you're hurting, because it feels like a part of me is breaking right along with you. I could never even begin to imagine the horror of what you felt when they pushed you off that cliff.”

The pure, unvarnished pain in his voice was all it took to melt away the last of my defensive rage. My shoulders dropped, and I found myself leaning heavily back into his warm embrace, letting him hold me.

“It was so horrifying,” I whispered into the quiet room, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. “I never want to feel that kind of betrayal ever again.”

Xender silently pulled back just enough to look at me, his large hands coming up to tenderly cup my cheeks.

“Let's get married, Alda,” he said, his dark eyes searching mine with a desperate, beautiful sincerity. “We can pick a date, fix everything, and plan the whole thing together. I just want to make you happy. Please, let me be a part of your happy memories from now on. Let me help you forget all those horrible things.”

His gaze was so entirely honest. The pure love shining in his eyes only made a profound sadness bloom in my chest, and it absolutely broke my heart because I knew, deep down, I couldn't even bring myself to tell him the truth.

“Xender... I... I can't...” I stammered, the words choking in my throat. The last few hours had been the most beautiful, memorable moments I had experienced since the day I married and divorced Seth—since the moment I was pushed down this agonizing road of vengeance.

“We don't have to rush into it,” he added quickly, misinterpreting my hesitation. “We can take it as slowly as you need. I am completely willing to wait for you to heal.”

“Xender, you have been nothing but incredibly helpful to me,” I finally said, forcing myself to drag my gaze away from his, refusing to let him see the tears that were finally spilling over my lashes. “And I wish with everything in me that I could stay here with you. I wish I could make those beautiful memories with you... but I can't.”

I gently slipped out of his warm hold, standing up and taking a few heavy steps away from him. I turned back around, watching the sudden, heartbreaking confusion flash across his handsome features.

“I am nothing but a temporary host, Xender,” I confessed, the words tearing out of my chest, stripping away the final secret between us. “Siofra is my only source of life right now. Eventually, she will need to go back to her own world, to her own life. And the exact second that happens... I will go right back to being the cold, dead body I was before she ever found me.”

Xender went completely pale, staring up at me as if I had struck him.

“There is no future with me, Xender,” I whispered, my heart shattering into a million jagged pieces at the sight of his face. “It's time for me to finally wake up from this beautiful dream. It's time for me to stop being selfish. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”

The absolute agony and destruction etched into his expression as he stared back at me broke whatever tiny shred of strength I had left.

Unable to look at him for another second, I turned on my heel and fled from the dining room, running all the way up the stairs to his bedroom, desperate for air, desperate to breathe.

I had finally told him. There were no more secrets left between us. But as I locked the door behind me, a heavy, suffocating weight crushed my chest. Why do I feel like absolute shit? Why did my broken heart keep screaming, wanting a future that could never, ever belong to me?