29 days

29days

Elena’s POV

The parking lot lights swam above me. My legs had already given out. I sat on the cold concrete with my back against the car door, one hand pressed hard against my ribs, the other gripping the rough ground.

My back pressed hard against the car door. Legs folded underneath me. The left one already burning from the angle. Parking lot lights flickered above my head.

“Stellan…” My voice came out thin. “I can’t… I can’t breathe.”

He dropped to his knees in front of me. Hands on my shoulders. “Okay, look at me…just look at me.”

I shook my head. Tears already stinging. “It hurts. Please.”

“In through your nose. Four counts. You know this.” His voice stayed steady, the same way he talked when he helped me up the stairs or rubbed the knots out of my calves at night. The same way he tucked the blanket around me at 3 am when the insomnia hit. “Come on. With me.”

I tried, but the air stopped halfway. “I need you to hold me. Just hold me…please.”

He didn’t move closer. “That’s not how we do it anymore. Isolde said…”

“I don’t care what she said!” The words tore out of me. “I’m scared. I can’t get the air. Please, Stellan.”

He sat back on his heels and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’m calling her. She’ll tell us what to do.”

My stomach dropped. “Don’t. Just stay with me.”

He already had the phone to his ear. One ring, two, then Isolde’s voice came through, clear and calm, like she was in a quiet office instead of a parking lot at midnight.

“Stellan? Is everything alright?”

“She’s having an attack. We’re outside the restaurant. She can’t catch her breath.”

I reached for his wrist, but he shifted, so I couldn’t grab it.

Isolde’s voice stayed even. “Is she in immediate danger? Any chest pain beyond the panic?”

“No. Just the breathing.”

“Good. Then do not hold her. Do not rub her back. Do not let her lean on you. She has to ride this out herself. Guide the breathing only. Four in, hold, six out. If you take over, she stays dependent. You know this.”

I stared at him. My hands shook against the concrete. “Stellan, please. I need you.”

He looked at me, then back at the phone. “She’s asking me to hold her.”

“And you will tell her no,” Isolde said. “Firmly, kindly but no. This is mandatory. She has to feel the discomfort and still choose control. You are not helping her by becoming her safety net again.”

My throat closed tighter. “I’m right here. I can hear her.”

Stellan’s eyes flicked to mine. “She can hear you.”

Ther was a short pause. Then Isolde’s voice softened just a little. “Elowen, I know this feels cruel, but it is not. You are stronger than the panic. Stellan cannot keep rescuing you. That is how the anxiety wins. Breathe with him. It'll go.”

I let out a broken sound that was half laugh, half sob. “I saved his life, and this is what I get.”

Stellan’s jaw flexed. He didn’t answer me. He spoke into the phone instead. “Four in. Hold. Six out. Got it.”

“Call me if it escalates,” Isolde said. “Otherwise, stay the course.”

He ended the call, put the phone away then looked at me like I was a problem he already had the solution for.

“In through your nose,” he said. “Four out. I’m right here, but I’m not going to hold you. You can do this.”

I pressed both hands to my chest. The scars on my left leg burned when I shifted. The long skirt hid them, but I felt every raised line. “I can’t. It feels like I’m dying.”

“You’re not. Isolde said this is normal. Just the body panicking. Follow the counts.”

“I don’t want counts.” My voice cracked. “I want my husband. The one who used to pull me into his chest when I woke up screaming. Not this… not a phone call and rules.”

He stayed where he was. Knees on the dirty ground. Expensive trousers getting marked. He never cared about that with me. He had spent months clearing the house of anything sharp, walking on my slow side so I wouldn’t fall, massaging my feet until the insomnia finally loosened its grip. All of it careful but empty.

“I’m still your husband,” he said. “This is me taking care of you the right way.”

“The right way according to her.”

“She’s the professional. She knows what keeps you stuck.”

I dragged in another failed breath. Tears ran freely now. “You listen to her more than you listen to me. You push me to wear shorts because she said the scars shouldn’t stop me. You took the safety bars out of the shower because she said I needed to face the fear. And now you’re letting me choke in a parking lot because she said holding me is wrong.”

His hands curled into fists on his thighs. “I’m trying to help you get better.”

“You’re trying to pay a debt.” The words came out quiet. “You’ve said it. More than once. I’m the reason you’re still breathing, so you have to keep me breathing. That’s not love, Stellan. That’s obligation.”

He flinched like I’d hit him. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. My fingers were cold. “You take care of my body. You make sure I eat. You make sure I sleep. But when I need the part of you that used to look at me like I mattered, you hand me breathing exercises and call another woman.”

“Isolde is helping both of us.”

“She’s helping you feel less guilty.”

Silence sat heavy between us. A car drove past on the main road. Headlights washed over us and disappeared. My left hip throbbed from the concrete. I tried to straighten my leg but the familiar sharp pull made me suck in a breath that still wasn’t enough.

Stellan noticed. “You need to get off the ground. Your leg…”

“I know about my leg.” I pushed myself up using the car door. My knee hit the door and I almost went down again. He reached out but I stepped back before he could touch me. “Don’t.”

He dropped his hand. “Elowen.”

I stayed standing, weight mostly on the good side, skirt hiding the worst of the scars. The night air felt thin. My chest still wouldn’t open all the way, but the panic had shifted into something colder.

“I want a divorce.”

The words hung there. Flat and final.

Stellan went completely still. “What?”

“I want a divorce.” My voice didn’t shake this time. “I’m done being the debt you have to repay. I’m done watching you choose her methods over my voice. I’m done waiting for you to look at me the way you used to look at her.”

His face changed. Shock first, then something harder. “No.”

“Stellan…”

“No.” He stood up. His tall frame blocking the light. “We’re not doing this. Not after everything. You almost died for me. I owe you my life… I’m not walking away. And you’re not walking away either.”

I met his eyes. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“I do. Because you can’t manage alone. The anxiety. The nights you don’t sleep. The way your leg gives out without warning. I’m the one who stays. I’m the one who makes sure you’re safe. You’re not leaving.”

I gave a small, tired smile that didn’t reach anywhere. “You still think I need you to survive.”

“I know you do.”

“Then you’ll have to watch me prove you wrong.”

He stepped closer. Voice low and final. “There will be no divorce. You’re mine to take care of. I will never let you go.”

I looked at him for a long second. The man who massaged my scars. The man who removed every knife from the kitchen. The man who just called another woman while I begged him for air.

Twenty-nine days.

That was all I had left. Twenty-nine mornings of pretending. Twenty-nine nights of listening to him breathe beside me while the small bag stayed hidden in the back of the closet and the visa papers waited under the towels. He still believed I couldn’t survive without him.

I turned, unlocked the passenger door with fingers that still shook, and lowered myself inside before my leg could give out again.

Behind me, his voice came hard and certain through the open door.

“I mean it, Elowen. I will never let you leave.”

I shut the door.

Twenty-nine days left.