Chapter 60 The Only Way

Chapter 60 The Only Way
It was best this way.

At least, that’s what I kept repeating in my head, like a mantra meant to numb me, to keep me from unraveling completely. If I said it enough times, maybe it would eventually start to feel true. Maybe it wouldn’t feel like I was ripping out pieces of myself and leaving them scattered across every place I touched on my way out of this life.

But the thought didn’t comfort me. It just echoed, hollow and brittle, in the back of my skull as I drove.

The hospital looked colder than the last time I’d been here. Maybe it was the lighting, or maybe it was me—maybe everything felt colder now because I was carrying this strange heaviness inside my chest that refused to settle.

I walked through the automatic doors like someone moving underwater. Every sound felt distant: the beeping monitors from the hallway, the nurses pushing carts, the faint hum of air conditioning. I wasn’t really hearing any of it. My mind was too full of everything else—Nina’s voice, Kevin’s kiss, the weight of those signed documents burning in my bag, the quiet, steady ache in my stomach that reminded me of the life growing inside me that nobody else knew about.

I don’t know how I made it to his ward. One minute I was staring at the elevator buttons, and the next thing I knew, I was standing at his door, my hand frozen on the handle.

I pushed it open slowly.

He was asleep.

And for a moment, I was grateful for that—grateful that he didn’t have to see me looking like this, didn’t have to see the exhaustion clinging to my bones or the sadness pressed into every line of my face. He looked peaceful. Too peaceful. As if he’d been waiting his whole life to finally rest without carrying the weight of Kevin’s family, or Nina’s threats, or my own ruined choices.

I stepped inside quietly. The air smelled like antiseptic, something metallic and cold underneath it. I placed the small bag I had brought on the table beside him—new socks, the snacks he liked even though he wasn’t supposed to eat them, the crossword puzzle book I’d gotten him because he always pretended he hated them but I knew he didn’t. He wasn’t going to use them now. I knew that. I still couldn’t stop myself from bringing them.

I sat down in the chair beside him, letting the silence press softly against me. I wanted to hold his hand. I really did. But I hesitated because I didn’t want to wake him, and also because the second I touched him, I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave.

My chest tightened painfully.

I blinked quickly, trying to clear the burning in my eyes. But the tears came anyway, welling up until everything blurred. My father shifted then—just a little—and his eyelids parted halfway, unfocused.

“Abby?” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

My breath hitched. His eyes didn’t even fully open before he drifted back under again, but hearing him say my name like that—soft, confused, familiar—made something inside me collapse.

I swallowed hard, blinking rapidly to push the tears back down, but they clung stubbornly to my lashes.

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” I whispered. The words trembled out of me, barely audible. Sorry for leaving. Sorry for everything he didn’t know. Sorry for making choices he’d never understand. Sorry for loving someone I could never have. Sorry for bringing him into the crossfire of Nina’s games. Sorry for letting his son—Kevin—carry burdens he never deserved.

I reached out and finally let my fingers wrap around his hand, just briefly, squeezing once, gently. His skin was warm. That warmth nearly broke me.

If I stayed any longer, I wouldn’t go at all.

So I stood up quickly, forcing myself to release him even though my hand shook as it fell away. I turned and left his ward before my resolve could crumble.

The hallway outside felt colder. Too bright. Too sharp. I walked faster than I should have, wanting to get out before my legs gave up the same way they had earlier when Kevin walked away from me.

The moment I stepped out of the hospital, a gust of wind hit me, cool and merciless. I felt it slice through the thin control I had left.

By the time I reached my car, my hands were trembling. I sat inside and closed the door, needing to shut out the world for just one minute. Then I leaned forward, pressing my forehead against the steering wheel. The leather was cold, grounding.

A shaky breath tore out of me. Not a sob—just a breath so full of weight it hurt to release.

This was it. The point of no return.

I stayed like that for a moment, letting my heart slow, letting the ache inside me settle just enough to function. Then I straightened, wiped my face with the back of my hand, and turned on the engine.

The tires rolled out of the parking lot, and I didn’t look back at the hospital. I couldn’t. If I did, I might turn around. And turning around wasn’t an option anymore.

I headed straight for the airport.

The sky looked like it was swallowing the sun whole—darkening, fading, just like everything else I was leaving behind.

And maybe this was best.

But God, it didn’t feel like it.

I didn’t even make it halfway to the terminal before my phone lit up in my hand—Stephen calling. Again. And again. And again.

His name kept flashing across the screen like some kind of warning alarm, something meant to pull me back, to drag me into explanations I didn’t have the strength to offer. I knew exactly what he’d say if I picked up. He’d ask where I was. He’d ask what happened. He’d demand to know what I’d done, what Nina had done, what Kevin said, what I was planning.

I couldn’t afford any of those questions.

I couldn’t afford the sound of his voice softening because he knew I was lying.

So I ignored the first call… and the second… and the third. But by the fifth, something in me twisted painfully. Stephen didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to be left guessing or worrying or piecing together the fragments of the disaster I was leaving behind. But he also didn’t deserve the fallout that would come if he knew my plans.

I stared at my screen as it rang for what felt like the hundredth time. My thumb hovered over the answer button for a moment—just one moment—because a part of me wanted to hear a familiar voice. I wanted someone to tell me I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of my life. I wanted someone to ask me if I was okay, and I wanted to collapse into that concern.

But I knew myself. If I heard him say my name, I’d break. And if I broke, everything I was doing would fall apart.

I couldn't go back.
Not now.
Not when Kevin had already decided the best way to protect me was to erase me. Not when Nina wanted me gone badly enough to barter freedom like it was some twisted business transaction. Not when a child—a small, fragile possibility—was growing inside me with no idea what kind of chaos it had been conceived in.

I couldn’t drag anyone into this.

So I did the one thing that made my chest ache like a bruise forming from the inside.

I turned my phone off. Completely.

The screen went black, and the silence that followed swallowed me whole. No more buzzing. No more vibrating fits of guilt. Just quiet. Heavy, suffocating quiet.

For a second, I held the phone in my hand like it was a dead thing—something I had to bury. And then, instead of throwing it away like I wanted to, I shoved it deep into my bag because even destroying things felt like too much effort at this point.

I walked toward the gate with that pit growing in my stomach, the one that made me feel like something was unraveling inside me stitch by stitch. The airport lights were too bright, the people around me too alive, too loud, too free of the weight that pressed into every breath I took.

Boarding felt unreal, like my body was moving before my brain could catch up. I handed over my ticket, heard the attendant say something polite, and I nodded even though I couldn’t remember the words a second later.

I stepped onto the jet bridge, and the air changed—cooler, stiffer, like the inside world was trying to adjust to me or I was trying to adjust to it. I hated how my hands trembled as I held onto the strap of my bag. I hated how much I wanted someone to stop me, to ask me where I was going, to tell me there was still time.

But no one did.

Nobody knew.

And that was the whole point.

When I finally settled into my seat on the plane, it hit me all at once where I was going.

Perth.

Western Australia.

Nina had booked for Sydney but I chose Perth.

It was half the world away. A place so far from New York that it felt like stepping off one planet and onto another. A city none of them would think to look for me in. Even Nina wouldn't realize I'd settled for Perth instead of Sydney.

It was a place I’d chosen because it was foreign, sprawling, sunlit, and quiet. A place where I could disappear into the background without effort. A place with no strings tying me to anyone, no history waiting to devour me, no familiar corners whispering Kevin’s name whenever I closed my eyes.

Far from Nina.
Far from the company.
Far from the lies I’d signed onto.
Far from Kevin… especially Kevin.

God.

I exhaled shakily, sinking back into my seat as the doors closed. The murmur of passengers quieted, and a strange calm fell over the cabin. A false calm. One that didn’t match the storm inside my chest. My stomach twisted—not just with worry but with that faint, sharp pang I’d felt earlier, the reminder that I wasn’t alone in this anymore.

I pressed a hand to my abdomen without thinking.

No one knew.
No one could know.
Especially not him.

As the plane began to move, I felt something tug at me—something invisible, like a thread stretching thin with every inch of distance we gained from the terminal. From New York. From everything.

The safety instructions droned over the speakers, but I didn’t hear a single word.

All I heard was the quiet beat of my own heart.

All I felt was the tear forming inside me—the one that started when Kevin kissed me goodbye without knowing it was goodbye… and widened when I asked Nina for his father’s freedom… and finally split open the moment I turned off my phone.

The engines roared, the plane surged forward, and the ground fell away beneath us.

And just like that, I left everything behind.

New York.
My family.
Kevin.
My old life.
The woman I used to be.

I stared out the window as the city shrank below—blurred by clouds and altitude and the tears I refused to let fall.

I wasn’t running.
I wasn’t giving up.

I was disappearing—because it was the only way to protect them now.

And maybe one day, I’d learn to live with the pieces of myself I’d abandoned.

Maybe.

But right now… it just felt like dying slowly in the sky.