บททั้งหมดของ Dear Ex, See you never: บทที่ 51 - บทที่ 60

Millicent's POVI avoid Damon for three days. It's cowardly, I know. But I don't know how to face him after what happened in the car, the way he touched my face, the way my body responded, the way I almost leaned into him and let whatever was happening happen. I'm not ready to examine any of it, so I do what I've always done when emotions get too complicated.I run.I throw myself into work at the studio, booking extra sessions, staying late to edit photos, finding any excuse to be somewhere other than the mansion. When I am home I spend my time with Josh, playing with him in the nursery, reading him stories, watching him sleep with that fierce maternal love, that's the one emotion I trust completely.I eat breakfast before Damon wakes and dinner after he's retreated to his study. I use the side entrances, the back hallways, the routes I've mapped specifically to avoid running into him. Elena notices, of course she notices, but she doesn't comment beyond the occasional concerned look

Millicent's POVWe don't make it home.Halfway to the mansion, Damon speaks for the first time since we left the hospital. "I can't leave her. I need to go back."I don't argue. I turn the car around and drive back to the hospital, where Damon's name and money get us past the visiting hours restrictions and into a family waiting room that's been designated for our use.The room is small, quiet, decorated in that inoffensive beige that's meant to be calming but mostly just feels empty. There's a couch, two chairs, a table with magazines no one will read, and a vending machine humming in the corner.Damon sits on the couch, staring at nothing.I get us coffee from the machine, terrible coffee, bitter and lukewarm, and sit beside him. The cups grow cold between our hands. Neither of us drinks."She's dying."His voice is flat, stating a fact. I don't try to contradict him."The doctors said maybe weeks. Maybe days. They can't predict with certainty." He shakes his head slowly. "She's bee

Millicent's POVThe fuckn sleep won't come. I've been lying in bed for two hours now, staring at the ceiling, my mind spinning through everything that's happened in the past forty-eight hours. Vivian in the hospital, fragile and fading bit by bit. Damon breaking open in the waiting room was something I never saw coming in a million years. Him showing me parts of himself I never knew existed, the kiss he pressed to my forehead at dawn, the way he looked at me, really looked. So I lie there replaying it again and again, thinking that maybe I must’ve imagined it, except I can still feel the ghost of his soft lips against my skin.And Mike. Always Mike, somewhere in the background of my thoughts, his words from the garden playing on repeat. "I think I might be feeling it too."I throw off the covers and pad barefoot to the kitchen, desperate for something to occupy my hands, my mouth, or my racing mind. Tea, maybe. Or warm milk. Something to quiet the noise inside my head.The kitchen is

Millicent's POVThe walk to Damon's study feels like the longest journey of my life. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my temples, my throat, my fingertips. Mike told me Damon wants to see me, that he's not angry, that I should just listen, but I don't believe it. How can he not be angry? I kissed his partner. I crossed a line that should never have been crossed. I betrayed the man who saved my studio, who's caring for my son, who sat with me through a hospital vigil and showed me parts of himself he's never shown anyone.The door to his study is open. I stop in the threshold, unable to make myself take the final steps.Damon is standing by the window with his back to me, silhouetted against the gray afternoon light. He looks exactly the way he did the day we first met in this room, tall, imposing, impossible to read. But something is different now. The rigidity in his shoulders has softened. The ice in his posture has begun to thaw."Close the door," he says without tur

Millicent's POVThe week that follows is a slow dance of learning. We eat meals together now, all three of us, no more hiding in separate rooms or timing our schedules to avoid each other. We watch movies in Mike's wing, me tucked between them on the couch, hyper-aware of every accidental brush of shoulders, every deliberate press of thighs. We take walks in the garden at dusk, talking about everything and nothing, our hands finding each other in the growing dark.The touches are tentative at first. Mike's fingers tracing patterns on my knee while we watch something forgettable on the television. Damon's hand at the small of my back as we walk through doorways, lingering longer than strictly necessary. The three of us learning to exist in proximity, to be comfortable with the electricity that crackles between us every time we're in the same room.But we don't cross the line. Not yet. Some unspoken agreement keeps us waiting, building, letting the tension coil tighter and tighter un