บททั้งหมดของ You Left, I Could Have Fixed Us: บทที่ 51 - บทที่ 60

Chapter Fifty-One Maya’s POV I woke to silence. Not the silence of peace, but the kind that pressed down like a weight, the kind that listened and demanded and waited. The room was dim, washed in the pale light of early afternoon that slipped through narrow windows. Shadows clung to the corners, heavy and unmoving, as though even the air held its breath. I lay on a narrow cot, the sheets tucked carefully around me, smelling faintly of lavender and linen. It should have been soothing. It was not. The scent clung too sweet, too deliberate, reminding me with each inhale that someone had carried me here, someone had seen me faint, someone had touched me when I was too far gone to resist. Shame came before breath, before thought, before anything else. I turned my face into the pillow, as though hiding could undo what had already been done, as though closing my eyes again could erase the image of myself collapsing in front of them all. In front of him. My body betrayed me once more.

Chapter Fifty-Three Ethan’s POV Her body went slack in my arms. For one terrible breath, I thought I had lost her. Her head fell against my shoulder, lips parted but silent, lashes fluttering against pale skin. Panic rose sharp and unbidden, hotter than anything I had felt in years. “Maya.” Her name tore from me harder than I intended, the sound echoing in the small chamber. She did not stir. Her weight pressed heavily against my chest, small and fragile in a way I had never let myself think of her. I shifted, one arm beneath her knees, the other firm around her back. The blanket slid from her shoulders as I gathered her, and I felt the tremor of her shallow breath against my throat. Relief cut through me. She was breathing, faint and uneven, but alive. Still, the sight of her like this stripped something bare in me. The proud, unyielding girl who always met my gaze, who clenched her jaw rather than speak, who refused to bend no matter what shadow she stood under—she was limp

Chapter Fifty-Five Ethan’s POV Her breathing changed before her eyes opened. It was subtle, a deeper pull of air, a faint tremor at the edge of her lips. But I caught it, my body going still, braced for the moment her lashes would lift and drag me into the truth of whatever lived inside her now. I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My hand was still wrapped around hers, my thumb tracing circles over the knuckles in a rhythm I hadn’t even realised I’d been clinging to. The room was quiet, the kind of quiet that pressed against the chest like a weight. I hated it. I hated that silence had been filled only by his name. Alvarez. The word rang in me again, like an echo that refused to fade, louder now that she was waking. Her lashes fluttered. Slowly. Hesitant. She blinked into the muted light of the chamber, pupils struggling to focus, her face drawing with confusion before the fog began to thin. She shifted slightly under the sheets, a weak, searching movement. And then her eyes found me. F

Chapter Fifty-Seven Maya’s POV The silence after fainting is not a silence at all. It is a hum inside the bones, an echo that does not belong to the room but to me. When I stirred, when breath shuddered back into my chest, it wasn’t the world I felt first, it was the weight of eyes on me. I kept mine closed. Because opening them would mean acknowledging that I had been seen. That my weakness, my collapse, had not remained hidden in the safe, private cage of my own body. No, it had spilled into the hands of another. I could feel him. Ethan. The space between us wasn’t space at all. It was pressure. His nearness carried warmth that reached my skin, telling me I wasn’t alone even as he said nothing. Not a word. Not a question. Not yet. My lashes fluttered, but I forced them down again. Cowardice. Pride. I couldn’t decide which kept me still. My breathing betrayed me, shallow and uneven, and I knew he was close enough to hear every quiver of it. The shame came slowly at first, l

Chapter Fifty-NineMaya’s POVThe chamber was too quiet.It should have been a comfort, this private room where no one could see, no one could overhear, no one could measure the tremor in my hands or the unsteady rise of my chest. And yet the silence did not soothe. It pressed against me like a wall, thick and suffocating, as though the very air knew I had run out of places to hide.Ethan stood a little away from me, not so close that I could feel him, but not so far that I could forget him either. His presence carried across the space like heat, contained, controlled, but undeniable.I had not dared to sit. My body was strung too tightly for stillness. I kept my hands folded in front of me, knuckles white, the skin of my fingers marked by the bite of my own nails. If I looked at them, I would see what I had done written there, shame pressed into the lines of my flesh, sin smeared across my palms. So I didn’t look. I fixed my eyes on the stone floor instead, tracing the faint patterns