Chapter 55 Chapter 55

Chapter 55 Chapter 55
Katherine watched the city lights blur into streaks of neon as the car moved through the dark streets. She sat in the passenger seat, her body stiff, her mind replaying the look in AJ’s eyes one last time. She had never seen that much hate in a man, especially not in him. It wasn’t a loud, chaotic anger; it was a cold, deadly silence that froze the air in the hospital room. He hadn't raised a hand to her—she knew, deep down, that AJ would never hit a woman—but the sheer intensity of his gaze was enough to shatter her. He had stared at her without blinking, his jaw set like stone, while the dark, stormy flicker in his eyes burned away every shred of comfort they had ever shared.

She looked out the window, her heart aching. Kit, her brother, was the only one she trusted to pick her up, so he was the one driving her away from the only place she wanted to be: AJ’s arms.

She wasn't heading to her home; she was heading to her parents’ house. The sadness twisted inside her, a physical knot that tightened every time she breathed. AJ didn't want her. The finality of his words, and that last, lingering kiss on her forehead—a kiss that felt more like a goodbye than a promise—echoed her guilt in her mind. She was the bad guy in this situation, the villain in her own love story.

All she needed to do was give him space. He was a man who needed time to process the wreckage, and she was the one who had provided the hammer to break it.

“We’re here,” Kit said gently, pulling into the driveway. He gave her a soft, compassionate smile. He hadn’t asked why AJ, a doctor and her boyfriend, had sent her home with him instead of taking care of her himself. To explain that, she would have to explain the fight about the baby and the abortion clinic. She couldn't do it. She couldn't bear to see the look of disgust that would surely cross her brother's face if he knew what she had considered. She didn't want Kit to look at her as if she were a monster, too.

“Mother made up your room. I’ll be your ‘coma guy’ tonight,” he said, trying to inject some lightness into the heavy air. “AJ said I should wake you up every two hours. He wants to make sure you don’t slip into a coma.”

Katherine let out a dry, shaky laugh. “Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad,” she whispered, her breath forming a tiny, vanishing cloud on the cold window glass.

“Don’t say that, Kat.”

“When do you leave for your camp?” She turned her head to look at him. In the soft light of the dashboard, she saw the pity in his eyes. She didn't want pity. Pity was for the broken, and she refused to believe she was broken beyond repair. She didn't need a brother's sympathy; she needed AJ’s forgiveness. She needed the man who made her feel like the center of the universe.

“The day after tomorrow,” Kit replied. “But I can postpone it if you need me to.”

“No need,” she said, her voice firmer than she felt. “I don’t expect to be here that long.”

She dug her hand deep into her jacket pocket, fisting her fingers around her cell phone as if it were a holy relic. It was her lifeline. She would keep it plugged into the charger every second of the night, watching the screen until it glowed with his name. She wasn't going to risk missing his call—not for a second. Her gaze shifted toward the house, where her mother’s silhouette appeared in the doorway, a ghost in the dim yellow light.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Katherine walked toward the house, feeling a hollowness that she didn't think she would ever be able to fill. She had never known it was possible to feel this empty. Her hand hovered instinctively above her belly. Forty-eight hours ago, there had been a life growing inside her, a potential future that she had almost thrown away. Now, there was nothing. The emptiness of her body was matched only by the crushing, absolute emptiness of her heart.

Days bled into one another. She moved through the house like a phantom, checking her phone a hundred times an hour. Every vibration, every flash of the screen from a random notification, sent a jolt of adrenaline through her that eventually faded into a dull, throbbing ache.

Maybe he hasn’t forgiven me yet, she told herself for the thousandth time. He’s just angry. He’s hurting. I would be hurting too.

She would wait. She would wait for as long as it took, even if the wait turned into months. She looked around her childhood bedroom, the posters on the wall, the familiar scent of old books and lavender, but none of it felt like hers anymore. This was a place for a girl, and she felt like a woman who had lost everything that made her life worth living.

This is temporary, she repeated like a mantra. Soon I will be back home with AJ, where I belong.

But as the second night approached, the fear began to sharpen. What if "temporary" was a lie she was telling herself? What if the "might" that Adrian Senior had spoken of was actually a "never"?

She sat on the edge of the bed, her phone held to her chest. She thought back to the hospital room—the smell of bleach, the sound of AJ’s voice breaking, the way he had backed away from her.

She had been so scared of giving up her career that she had almost given up the most precious thing she had ever known. The remorse was a poison, a slow-acting toxin that made it hard to swallow. She had been selfish, yes, but was she irredeemable?

She stood up and walked to the window, watching the moonlight crawl across the lawn. She felt the weight of her own choices pressing down on her. She had wanted it all—the success, the respect, the career—and in her frantic attempt to keep her hands on everything, she had let the most important thing slip through her fingers.

AJ, please, she thought, closing her eyes. Just call me. Tell me you’re angry. Tell me I’m a fool. Just don’t tell me I’m nothing to you.

She looked down at her hands. They were trembling. She had always been the one in control, the one who navigated life with the precision of a surgeon. Now, she felt like a child lost in a forest, waiting for a parent to come and find her. The terror of losing AJ was no longer a shadow; it was a constant, living thing that sat in the room with her, breathing down her neck. She had pushed him to the edge, and now she had to wait to see if he would reach back or if he would let go entirely.

She crawled into the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin, clutching the phone so tightly her knuckles turned white. She would wait until the sun rose, and then she would wait until it set again.

She would prove to him that she was worth the fight, even if she had to fight the silence of his heart for the rest of her life. Because without AJ, there was no Katherine. There was only the empty space where their future used to be, and she refused to let that be the end of the story.