Chapter 58 It's Goodbye

Chapter 58 It's Goodbye
Kevin’s voice cut through the air like something sharp, something frustrated and fraying at the edges.

“Did you see the tabloids? It was messed up with our story—the pictures and those articles…” he trailed off, sounding like someone trying to keep himself from exploding.

I blinked once. Twice. My brain felt sluggish, like my thoughts were dragging through mud.
“Was?” I heard myself say, the word coming out thin and hollow.

Kevin nodded, watching me too closely. “It’s wiped clean. Gone. Like it was never posted in the first place.”

“Ohh…” The sound stumbled out of my mouth because I didn’t trust myself to say anything else. Not when I knew exactly why the tabloids were suddenly empty. Nina.
Nina who always got her way.
Nina who wanted me gone.
Nina who now held my entire life in her hands like it was delicate glass she could shatter whenever she pleased.

And just like that, it hit me again—the realization that I had no way out.
No loophole.
No escape hatch.
This was my deadline. My trap. My sentence.

I had fifteen hours left before disappearing, and I was pregnant with the child of a man the world believed should’ve been my stepbrother. Pregnant with the child of the boy I wasn’t even allowed to love. Pregnant with a secret that would destroy Kevin in ways he couldn’t recover from if anyone found out.

“‘Ohh’? That’s all you have to say?” Kevin snapped, and the hurt under his anger cut straight into me. He wasn’t just annoyed—he was confused. He was trying to figure out why I wasn’t reacting, why I sounded like someone was squeezing my lungs shut.

I was afraid to push the conversation further. Afraid that if I opened my mouth too wide, everything I was hiding would leak out—Nina’s threat, the deal, the pregnancy. The pregnancy most especially. I felt it pressing against my chest like a bruise.

So I stayed quiet.

“Why did you call me out here?” I asked instead, my voice barely holding up, brittle around the edges.

Kevin scoffed—a sharp, humorless sound.
“Do you even know what I had to do just to protect you from this mess? From all this?” His hand raked through his hair, wild, frustrated. “And I’m trying to have a conversation with you and all you can say is ‘ohh’?”

He was right. He had every right to be angry. But I couldn’t give him what he wanted—my full honesty, my vulnerability—not when I was about to tear myself away from him like a piece of skin being ripped off bone.

I bit my lower lip so hard it trembled.

And God, it hurt.

Because he didn’t understand that every word I said now had to be calculated. Every breath had to be controlled. I was already breaking inside, and I couldn’t let him see it. I couldn’t let him know that I was leaving him… or why.

Kevin’s eyes searched mine, like he was trying to read something beneath my silence, like he was looking for the girl who usually fought back or snapped at him or rolled her eyes or argued until both of us forgot the world.

But I wasn’t her anymore.

I felt frozen.
I felt poisoned.
I felt like someone standing on the edge of a cliff, pretending she wasn’t about to jump.

I could see the confusion shifting into worry in his expression. A tiny flicker of fear. Like maybe, just maybe, he felt me slipping away from him and didn’t know why.

“Abby…” he said again, softer this time, like he was trying to pull me back with just my name.

But I kept biting my lip.

Because if I stopped…

I would crack open and everything inside me—everything I was trying so hard to bury—would spill out.

And once it did, nothing would stop him from burning the whole world down just to keep me.

And I couldn’t let him do that.

I couldn’t.

Even though every part of me wanted to reach for him.

Even though every part of me was breaking at the thought of leaving him behind.

I don’t know why biting my lip felt like the only thing keeping me from falling apart. Maybe it was the pressure—some kind of desperate reminder that I was still here, still inside my own body, even though everything else around me was slipping through my fingers.

When Kevin said, “the reason why I called you out here is because I wanted to talk about us…” something inside me twisted so sharply I almost doubled over. Us. The word echoed like a cruel joke in my chest. I bit my lip harder, almost hoping for blood, almost hoping pain would anchor me back into myself.

“What about us?” I managed to say, though my voice cracked like thin glass.

Kevin cursed softly, and the sound of it sent shivers down my spine—not because he was angry at me, but because his frustration felt too real, too raw, too familiar. His eyes flicked down to my lips, and I knew. I knew the moment before it even happened. Something broke in his expression, something that looked too much like hurt, or longing, or resignation—I couldn’t tell, because my own eyes were already burning.

He closed the distance between us so fast I barely inhaled before his hands were on my face. His palms were warm, shaking just a little, and for a second I hated him for it, because it reminded me of every moment I had ever wanted him. Every moment I had ever chosen him, even when I knew I shouldn’t.

I blinked, and my tears blurred everything—his eyes, his jawline, the tiny scar near his brow—but I still saw it. That flicker of pain. Or maybe I imagined it because I needed to believe he wasn’t as cold as he was trying to be.

“Kev…” I breathed, and the word barely left me before he kissed me.

It wasn’t a careful kiss. It wasn’t gentle. It was every tangled emotion he refused to speak shoved into one moment—hungry, desperate, confused. His mouth moved against mine with a kind of urgency that made my knees shake. I clutched fistfuls of his shirt just to stay upright, holding onto him like he was the only solid thing I had left.

Because this was the last time. I knew it. I felt the finality in the way his hands trembled at the edges. I felt it in the way my tears slid down my cheeks even as I kissed him back.

His lips tasted like goodbye.

When he finally pulled away, the world felt cold, empty and wrong. I bit my lip again, refusing to meet his eyes, because if I looked at him I would collapse. Or scream. Or tell him everything—every secret I was carrying like a death sentence.

“There…” Kevin muttered, like the kiss was some kind of reset button. “That should be enough to forget whatever has happened between us. We now have a fresh start in front of us.”

His voice was flat, clipped, too controlled.
He was building walls faster than I could breathe.

“So our relationship never happened, got it? We’re just step siblings who care about each other like family—nothing more.”

He stepped back from me. Once. Twice. Each step felt like a blow.

My breath hitched so violently I almost choked on it.

“No, Kevin, there’s…” I started, but the words died in my throat. What was I supposed to say? I’m pregnant with your child? I made a deal to disappear so you’re safe? I’m breaking while you’re pretending this is all nothing?

Nothing came out. Just a strangled, broken sob.

He didn’t wait. He didn’t even look back.

“I’ll see you around, Abby.”

Then he walked away.

Just like that.

My legs gave out the moment he turned the corner. I didn’t fall gracefully—I collapsed like someone whose strings had been cut. My palms hit the grass first, then my knees, then the rest of me just… folded. The cold earth pressed against my skin, but I hardly felt it through the shaking.

I tried to hold it in. I really did. But the silence of the garden wrapped around me like a dark, suffocating blanket, and everything I’d been holding back came crashing through me.

A sob tore out of me so loudly I startled myself. Then another. And another. My entire body shook, every breath coming out uneven and painful.

I wasn’t crying because he left—I was crying because I had to let him.
Because loving him meant destroying him.
Because carrying his child felt like a miracle and a curse at the same time.
Because lying to him felt like carving pieces out of myself.

I cried until my throat burned, until my hands were trembling too hard to hold myself up. I cried for him, for me, for the life inside me, for the future I would never get to have. I cried until everything felt hollow.

Until the only thing left in me was the cold, bitter truth:

He walked away thinking we could go back to being siblings.

And I was about to disappear before he ever learned the truth.

“No, Kevin. It's goodbye.”