|Katherine|
My eyes stayed fixed on him long after the words had fallen from his lips, tracing every hard line of his face as if I could find a c***k, a soft edge, some imperfection that might undo the weight of what I had just heard. I searched for it desperately, but there was none. Only the same unyielding resolve that had always defined him. My throat tightened, and the lump lodged there refused to budge, no matter how many times I swallowed, each attempt only making it harder to breathe.
For a moment, the world seemed to shrink to that hospital room, the only sound the faint, rhythmic hum of the machines that marked every measured beat of life. I waited for some hint, some sign that he might soften, but all I received was the slow, deliberate turn of his gaze away from me, like a dr
