جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 60

KillianThe car was too quiet.Celeste sat beside me, hands folded in her lap like she was holding herself together with nothing more than willpower and bone. She hadn’t looked at me once since we left the house. Not when I opened the door for her, not when I asked if the air-conditioning was too cold, not even when the driver pulled onto the highway and the city started slipping past the windows.I kept waiting for her to fight me. To snap, to accuse, to do anything other than sit there like a statue carved from silence. She didn’t.That scared me more than screaming ever could.I stared at the side of her face and catalogued every change I’d been too proud to notice until it was almost too late: the way her collarbones jutted like wings beneath the thin sweater, the faint blue vein pulsing at her temple, the way her lips had lost all colour. I wanted to reach for her hand and couldn’t find the courage.Twenty minutes into the drive I broke.“Talk to me,” I said, voice rougher than I

KillianI couldn’t sleep.Celeste was curled against my side, breathing slow and even for the first time in weeks, one hand resting over the barely-there curve of her stomach like she was guarding it even in dreams. Moonlight cut through the half-open curtains and painted silver across her cheekbones, across the faint bruises that had bloomed under her skin like purple petals.I should have been holding her. I should have been able to close my eyes and believe tomorrow would be better.Instead I was staring at the ceiling, counting heartbeats (hers, mine, the tiny one we hadn’t even heard yet) and trying to outrun the terror that had taken up permanent residence in my chest.At 3:17 a.m. I slipped out of bed.She stirred, murmured something I couldn’t catch, then settled again when I brushed her hair back. I waited until her breathing evened out, then pulled on yesterday’s trousers and padded barefoot down the hall.I didn’t know where I was going until I was standing outside the door

CelesteThe blow-out started in the kitchen and ended with me locked in the walk-in pantry like a child hiding from monsters.I don’t even remember what the first spark was. Maybe it was the way he set the glass of water down too hard beside my pills. Maybe it was the way I flinched when he said, “You’re taking them now, Celeste. No discussion.” Maybe it was three weeks of terror compressed into one single second when neither of us could breathe around the truth anymore.All I know is one moment we were standing by the island, the morning sun slicing across the marble like a blade, and the next every ugly thing we’d swallowed came spewing out.“You don’t get to decide when I stop fighting!” I shouted, voice cracking on the last word.“I’m not deciding when you stop,” he roared back, slamming his palm on the counter so hard the glass jumped. “I’m deciding you don’t get to give up while there’s still a chance!”“There might not be a chance!” I screamed. “Have you read the consen

KillianThey say bad news arrives in threes. Tonight it arrived in one long, endless scream of alarms.I was dozing against Celeste’s shoulder, her fingers still tangled in mine, when the cardiac monitor went from steady beeps to one continuous, flat wail.For half a second I thought I was dreaming.Then every light in the room flashed red and the bed rail slammed down as nurses poured in like water through a broken dam.“V-fib! Crash cart!”Hands shoved me backward. Someone ripped the blanket off Celeste’s chest. Another nurse climbed onto the bed, straddled her, and started compressions so hard I heard ribs crack.I couldn’t breathe.I couldn’t move.I just stood there, useless, watching the woman I loved die in front of me while strangers tried to punch her heart back into rhythm.“Clear!”The defibrillator paddles hit her skin. Her body arched off the bed like a bow drawn for war.Nothing.“Again! 300!”Another jolt. Another arch. Another flatline.I found my voice somewhere out

CelesteI woke to the sound of Killian’s voice, low and steady, drifting in from the hallway. He was reading aloud.Not a contract. Not a financial report. He was reading Goodnight Moon to my belly.“…and a little toy house, and a young mouse, and a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush…”The words cracked on mush. He cleared his throat and kept going.I lay still, afraid to move, afraid to break the spell. The morning light was soft, filtered through the half-open blinds, painting gold stripes across the hospital blanket. My head was bare, skin prickling where hair used to be, but for once the nausea was only a whisper instead of a scream.He’d been doing this every morning since the remission results. He’d wait until he thought I was asleep, then he’d rest his forehead against the small curve of my stomach and read whatever children’s book the nurses had smuggled in. Yesterday it was The Runaway Bunny. The day before, Guess How Much I Love You. He read them like script