Then she left.
Two weeks.
It’s been two fucking weeks, and I haven’t seen her, touched her, heard her voice except in my dreams.
I’ve called. Texted. Begged. Nothing.
It’s like she vanished, and with her, the only light I ever had.
Now I’m here—alone again. I’ve lived through war zones, painkillers, surgeries, physical therapy that breaks me down to the bones. But nothing hurts like living in a world where Izzy isn’t mine anymore.
She’s my heartbeat. My gravity.
Without her, nothing makes sense. I feel like a hollowed-out version of the man I used to be.
Sometimes, when I’m too tired to fight the darkness, I swear I smell her perfume. It curls around me, haunting and familiar, like it’s settled into my skin. I wake up reaching for her, whispering apologies into an empty room.
Tonight feels no different—until I hear the soft creak of the door.
My eyes snap open.
And I see her.
Curled in the armchair near my bed, her knees hugged to her chest, her cheek resting against the cushion. She’s fast asleep. My heart stops, then races so fast I feel it in my throat.
Izzy. She’s here. She came back.
I don’t move, afraid this is a dream I’ll shatter if I blink too hard.
The door opens and Alice walks in with a small bag. She sets it down beside Izzy with the quiet care of someone who knows how fragile everything is right now.
“I didn’t want to wake you, Nathan,” she whispers, brushing a hand down my cheek. “I brought Isabel her usual change of clothes.”
“Usual?” I echo, my voice scratchy, my gaze glued to the woman I thought I lost.
Alice smiles softly. “Isabel won’t come to the hotel. She stays here. Every night. She doesn’t want to leave you alone, not even for a few hours.”
I stare at her. Disbelief, guilt, and something dangerously close to hope clawing inside me.
“But… I haven’t seen her.”
Alice shrugs. “She hides when you’re awake. But she’s always been here, Nathan. Watching. Waiting. Loving you in the only way she thinks she still can.”
My throat burns. I turn my head into the pillow, fisting the sheets like a man trying to hold onto something solid while drowning. My voice comes out broken. “I thought she gave up on me.”
Alice’s expression hardens. “She should’ve. You made it damn easy to walk away. But she didn’t. Because that’s who she is.”
She pauses, her tone quiet but sharp as glass. “You don’t deserve her. But that doesn’t mean you can’t fight to become the man who does.”
The door clicks shut behind her, leaving me alone with the weight of her words and the silent figure of my wife only feet away.
I turn to her slowly, letting the pain crash into me like a wave I won’t dodge anymore. My chest rises with a silent sob as tears slip down my cheeks. God, she looks exhausted. Pale. Fragile.
She’s been here all along.
Even when I treated her like she was nothing.
And now—now I see the truth I’ve been too blind to admit:
