Wrong.
Mine.
I drifted after that.
Time stopped behaving.
Sometimes I was in surgery. Sometimes I was on the run. Sometimes I was at Coastal Thai with Nate, pretending noodleswere a reason to be close to Malibu. Sometimes I was in Georgia’s parents’ kitchen while her mother wrapped leftovers in foil. Sometimes I was in Cabo under a palm tree, and Destiny was looking at me like I had a choice.
I never had a choice.
That was the truth I had spent years burying.
I chose Georgia.
I did.
I chose the ring, the clean life, the promise, the family that welcomed me without fear. I chose the future that made sense. I chose the woman who would not drag me into war with my own conscience.
But choosing Georgia had not unchosen Destiny.
It had only made me a worse man.
The darkness thinned again.
Different sounds now.
Softer.
Not OR.
Machines. Beeps. A ventilator hissing like a patient monster. The air smelled cold and sterile. My body was far away, sunk beneath drugs and pain, but something warm held my hand.
Not held.
Clung.
A thumb brushed my knuckles.
A voice whispered near me.
“You’re really bad at staying away from me.”
Destiny.
Dream.
Had to be.
I couldn’t open my eyes. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t tell her that if she was a hallucination, she had bad timing and worse mercy.
She kept talking.
Her voice moved around me like water in the dark, sometimes clear, sometimes muffled, sometimes breaking apart before I could catch the words.
“I always noticed you.”
The memory of her forehead near my hand drifted through me, though I didn’t know if it was happening or if my mind had made it up because dying men were selfish enough to invent tenderness.
