That was Georgia.
Fighting.
Patient.
Better than I deserved.
“I’m here,” she whispered.
I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling.
“I know.”
“She’s not.”
The words were not cruel.
That made them worse.
I turned my head toward Georgia.
She was crying again, but her jaw was set.
She was not surrendering.
She was not stepping aside.
She was the woman with the ring, the promise, the years of waiting, and the stubborn belief that love could still be chosen if a man would just stop looking backward.
And I was the man weak enough, guilty enough, scared enough to agree.
“You’re here,” I rasped.
Her fingers tightened around mine.
“Then stay with me,” she said.
The words echoed.
Destiny’s voice.
Georgia’s voice.
Same plea.
Different claim.
I looked at the woman wearing my ring.
I thought of the woman walking away beyond the glass.
Then I made the choice I had already made once because undoing it would hurt too many people and prove too much about the coward I still was.
“I will,” I said.
Georgia cried harder, bending over my hand.
I lay there beneath hospital lights, alive because Destiny had helped drag me back from death, holding on to Georgia because guilt had convinced me vows could become love if I bled enough for them.
