Chapter 4 — The Ask

I'm on my feet before I've fully processed the sound.

Alexander stands in the doorway of the lounge, barefoot in a hospital gown, one hand gripping the IV pole like it's the only thing keeping him upright. His eyes find me immediately.

Relief floods his expression so openly it almost feels intrusive.

"You left," he says, his voice rough.

"You shouldn't be out of bed," I say.

"I woke up and you weren't there." He takes a slow step forward. "I thought—"

His voice breaks slightly.

"I thought you left."

Something in my chest shifts, subtle but undeniable. I hate that it does.

"I'm here," I say.

His shoulders drop, tension easing just enough to be noticeable. He reaches for me again, his fingers brushing mine like he needs the contact to be real.

"I don't want to be alone," he murmurs.

I still.

Behind him, Victoria watches from her seat, unmoving, unreadable, letting the moment do the work she doesn't have to.

And for the first time since this started, I understand exactly how little choice I actually have. Not because Victoria forced my hand....she barely had to lift it. It's this. It's the way he's looking at me like I'm the only steady thing in a world he doesn't recognize anymore, and some old, worn-down part of me still wants to be that for someone, even a version of him that might not be real.

I exhale slowly. Then I nod.

"I'll come home," I say.

Alexander's face changes instantly, something bright and unguarded breaking through the exhaustion.

"Yeah?" he asks softly.

"Yes."

Victoria smiles.

I don't look at her.

***************

A nurse ushers him back to bed with the particular impatience of someone who's said the same sentence four times already tonight. I follow at a distance, watching him settle against the pillows, watching the IV line get reattached, watching him watch me the entire time like I might dissolve if he stops.

"You should sleep," I tell him.

"Will you still be here when I wake up?"

"I'll be back," I say. It isn't quite an answer to what he asked, and he doesn't seem to notice, or he does and decides not to push it.

"Okay." He says it like a held breath finally let go. His eyes are already heavy, whatever adrenaline got him out of bed and into that hallway spent completely now. "Elena."

"What."

"Thank you."

I don't know what to do with that, so I don't do anything. I just watch him fall asleep, his hand slack at his side where it had been holding mine a minute ago, and I let myself feel exactly nothing about it, because feeling anything right now would be a mistake I can't afford.

Victoria is waiting for me outside, of course.

"We'll have the paperwork for the arrangement drawn up," she says, like we're discussing a merger, which I suppose, in the way that matters most to her, we are. "The equity conversation can wait until he's discharged."

"There won't be an equity conversation," I say. "Not yet. I said I'd come home. I didn't say I'd forgive you for how you got me there."

Something almost like respect moves through her expression. "Understood."

She walks away without another word, heels clicking evenly down the corridor, and I stand there a long moment before I let myself sit down again, alone, in a hospital hallway at two in the morning, having just agreed to move back into a house I spent three years learning to survive.

I don't cry. I don't know if I even want to anymore. I just sit with it, the way I've learned to sit with most things quietly, until it stops feeling like the ground is moving.

*************

My phone buzzes twice before I bother to check it.

The first is from my lawyer, a brief, formal line confirming the filing has gone through, that the divorce is now officially in process, that he'll be in touch once the court assigns a date. I read it twice. It should feel like something. An ending, a beginning, anything with weight to it.

Instead it just sits there next to everything else, one more piece of paperwork in a night that's already stopped making sense in any order I recognize.

The second message is from Mia.

"Everything okay? You sounded weird earlier."

I stare at it for a long moment before I type back.

"Just a long night. I'll explain soon. I love you."

Three dots appear, disappear, appear again. Then: "Love you too. Get some sleep."

I don't tell her that sleep isn't really on the table tonight, or that in a few hours I'm going to walk back into a house I swore I'd never set foot in again, or that the price of keeping her safe from our parents' mess turned out to be a version of a man I used to be married to, looking at me like I hung the moon he can't remember losing.

I put the phone away and sit there a while longer, in the particular quiet that only exists in hospitals at this hour... not peace, just the absence of anyone demanding anything from me for a few more minutes. I let myself have that much.

A cleaning cart rattles somewhere down the corridor. A monitor beeps twice in a room I can't see. Life in this building keeps moving in its small, mechanical rhythms whether or not the people inside it are falling apart, and there's something almost steadying about that. I'm not the only thing happening in this hallway tonight. I'm just the only one who has to decide what happens next.

I think about Victoria's face when I told her there wouldn't be an equity conversation yet. The flicker of something almost like respect. I've spent three years being underestimated in this family by the board, by the staff, by Alexander himself, back when he still had the version of himself capable of underestimating anyone. If I'm going back through those gates, it isn't going to be as the woman who used to live there quietly, correcting spreadsheets no one thanked her for.

Whatever this arrangement turns into, I intend to walk out of it owning more than I walked in with.

Tomorrow, I go back.

Tonight, I just breathe.