26 - SHOCKING NEWS

26 - SHOCKING NEWS


Aiden’s POV

The door creaked open, and there she was.

Cheryl stood in the doorway, freshly dressed in the T-shirt and shorts I’d bought for her, her damp hair tied into a messy bun with a few strands slipping free to frame her face.

And she wouldn’t look at me.

Her gaze skittered to the side, lingering on the carpet, the walls—anywhere but me. The air between us was thick, humming with something undeniable and unspoken.

God help me.

I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to stay still, but my mind was already betraying me—
Flashes.
Of her.
Naked. Wet. Dripping.

The curve of her hip.
The way water had slipped down her skin.
The way her lips had parted in shock, her cheeks burning red when she realized I was standing there—

Fuck.

I needed to shut this down. Now.

I opened my mouth, desperate to break the tension, but my tongue refused to cooperate. The words came out in a stuttered mess.

"We… w-we need to start going."

Jesus. Christ.

I didn’t wait for her to respond. I turned sharply, pushing away from the doorframe and striding out of the room before I could make a bigger fool of myself.

The car ride was a whole different kind of torture.

Cheryl sat beside me, quiet, her body angled toward the window, her fingers toying with the hem of her shorts.

I could still feel her presence—like some kind of gravitational pull that demanded my attention. Every inhale, every shift, every brush of fabric against her skin—it was like my body was tuned into her frequency, picking up on every tiny movement.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white.

I needed to say something. Anything.

"If it helps," I muttered, still staring at the road, "I didn’t see anything."

"It doesn’t," she shot back instantly.

I huffed a quiet laugh, shaking my head. Well, at least that broke the tension.

After a few moments, she started humming softly along with the radio. I wasn’t sure if she even realized she was doing it, but the sound filled the space between us, easing some of the tightness in my chest.

I exhaled slowly.

At least one of us was relaxed.

The rehab hospital looked different in the daylight.

Less ominous. Less eerie.

But it still carried that heavy, suffocating weight of things left unsaid.

I pulled into the narrow road leading to the entrance and cut the engine. Cheryl and I sat there for a beat, staring at the building.

I should have gotten out immediately. Should have opened the door, stepped onto the pavement, and walked inside.

But my body… wouldn’t move.

My fingers tapped against my knee, a nervous, restless rhythm that I couldn’t shake.

This was it.

After all these years.

After all the anger.

After all the unanswered questions and the broken pieces of a past I didn’t fully understand—

I was finally going to see her.

My mother. Evelyn Scott.

A woman I no longer knew. A woman who still had all the answers I searched for.

I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the pounding in my chest.

But my feet stayed planted.

My body locked in place.

Cheryl must have noticed I wasn’t beside her anymore, because she stopped walking and turned back. Her brows pulled together as her eyes searched my face.

She took one step toward me.

Then another.

Then, without a word, she took my hand.

Her fingers were small against mine, warm and steady.

And just like that, the world stopped spinning so damn fast.

"You can do this," she said, her voice softer than I’d ever heard it. "I’ll be right there."

I swallowed. My throat was too tight, my heart still hammering. "Promise, Tiny?"

She nodded.

For a second, a brief, fleeting second, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Steady.

She pulled me forward, and I let her.

We walked into the reception together, standing face to face with the same wretched-faced nurse from last night.

She blinked at us. "You're back."

"As we told you," I said, forcing my voice to stay level, "we're looking for a woman named Evelyn Scott. She sent us a message to find her here."

The nurse's expression shifted. Not confused. Something else. Something off.

"That’s… odd," she murmured, tapping at her keyboard. "Because the patients here aren’t allowed access to phones."

My stomach twisted.

"And even more weird," she continued, giving us a strange look, "because Evelyn Scott died in her sleep last night."

The ground tilted beneath me.

For a moment, I thought I’d misheard.

But Cheryl's sharp inhale told me I hadn’t.

The world blurred. The sounds around me faded.

My mother was dead.