The words sat between us.
I could not soften them.
“No,” I said.
Georgia pressed both hands over her mouth.
The ring rested against her cheek.
She cried then.
Not loud.
That would have been easier.
She cried like she was trying to keep some last piece of dignity intact while her future broke apart at the foot of a hospital bed.
I wanted to reach for her.
I did not.
For once, I understood touching would be selfish.
“I heard her,” Georgia said after a long moment.
My pulse kicked.
“I heard her say she wouldn’t forgive you if you made both of you heartbroken for the rest of your lives. I heard enough to know she is not chasing you. Not like I wanted her to be.”
Her mouth twisted.
“I wanted to hate her.”
I closed my eyes.
“She would have let me,” Georgia said. “If she were cruel, if she were smug, if she came in here trying to take you, I could hate her. I could make her the villain. I could fight dirty. I could stand in this room and say I’m your fiancée, and she has no right.”
I opened my eyes.
Georgia looked exhausted now.
Destroyed.
“But she keeps walking away,” she whispered.
Because Destiny was better than both of us.
That was the truth.
Destiny had every reason to claw for what she wanted after years of being denied it, and she kept choosing not to become the story people had once written for her mother.
Georgia looked at me.
“And you keep letting her.”
That one hit differently.
“She walked away tonight because you gave her nowhere else to go,” Georgia said. “And I think I stayed because you gave me just enough to hope.”
