This painful light.

AUSTIN’S POV

‘How could she trick me like this? Why on earth has she been deceiving me?’ I thought to myself as I sat by the bed staring at her—at Zoe.

Her face was so pale under the hospital light, almost fragile-looking. Her chest rose and fell with quiet, steady breaths. She looked peaceful now but all I could see was the storm she left in her wake.

I was heartbroken and it wasn’t because she was hurt but because I was starting to understand the kind of pain I had been living with without knowing.

I rubbed my hands together slowly trying to make sense of everything that had happened. I was supposed to come here wanting to be by her side when she woke up to hold her hand and tell her everything would be okay. But now… all I had were questions.

So she’s not Jamie’s mother.

She never was.

That lie alone knocked the wind out of me. But the implications—God, the implications.

I looked at her again and felt a bitter ache in my chest. I remembered the way she would smile at Jamie, how s