All Chapters of Decisions I made : Chapter 281 - Chapter 290

The next morning, Lela barely spoke. She sat at the kitchen table with her coffee while Jack made breakfast for Lily, and the silence between them felt completely different from the comfortable silence they had shared during his first few days home. Before the message, they had been able to sit beside each other without saying anything and still feel connected. Now every silence seemed filled with questions. Jack knew Lela was waiting for an explanation, and Lela knew he owed her one. Finally, after Lily had finished eating and Cathy had taken her into the living room, Lela looked at Jack. “I need you to explain something.” Jack nodded. “I know.” “Why does Megan keep contacting you?” Jack took a breath. “Because I made a mistake when I first met her.” Lela's expression hardened. “What kind of mistake?” “I was lonely. I was angry. I was drinking too much. I was going out with everyone, and I wasn't making it clear enough that I was completely unavailable.” Lela stared at him. “So you l

For a few seconds, neither of them moved.Lela stood in the middle of the room, her injured leg trembling beneath her, her good leg carrying most of her weight while every muscle in her body seemed to scream at her to stop. Jack stood only a few feet away, his hands held loosely at his sides because he had promised himself he would not interfere unless she needed him. He could see how badly she wanted to make it to him. He could also see the fear in her eyes—the fear that one wrong movement would send her crashing back to the floor and remind her that there had been a time when simply standing had felt impossible.But she was standing.She was actually standing.And then Lela took another step.Her foot moved forward slowly, almost painfully, and she shifted her weight. Her knee shook. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. For one terrifying second, she wobbled, and Jack instinctively moved half a step forward.“I've got you,” he whispered.“No,” Lela breathed, shaking her head.

The phone rang at 5:17 in the morning.Jack woke instantly.For a second, he didn't know where he was. His body reacted before his mind caught up, the months in Korea having trained him to wake quickly whenever his phone made that particular sound. Beside him, Lela shifted beneath the blankets, still half asleep, her hand searching instinctively for him.Jack grabbed the phone from the nightstand.“Hello?”There was a pause.Jack's expression changed.Lela opened her eyes.She knew that face.It wasn't the face of a man receiving an ordinary call.“What?” Jack whispered.Lela pushed herself up on one elbow.Jack listened.His eyes moved toward the window.“What do you mean?”Another pause.“Sir, my orders say—”He stopped.Lela's heart began pounding.Jack sat up completely.“No, I understand what the orders say. I'm asking whether that date is final.”Silence.He rubbed his forehead.“When?”Lela watched him carefully.“When do I have to report?”Jack's face tightened.Lela already k

The first thing Emily noticed was the silence.Not the ordinary silence that came after a storm, when the wind had finally exhausted itself and the world seemed to hold its breath. This was different. This was the silence of something being removed. The forest's sound vanished first. Then the distant hum of the town. Then the creaking of the Carter house beneath their feet. Even the beating of Emily’s own heart seemed to become impossibly far away.She looked up.The stars were gone.Not hidden behind clouds. Not dimmed. Gone.The sky above them had become an endless sheet of colorless darkness, and in the middle of it was the enormous eye.Nova was still floating in Emily’s arms.Her little body had risen several inches above the ground, surrounded by a soft silver light that seemed to come from somewhere inside her rather than around her. Her hair moved gently even though there was no wind. Her silver eyes were open, but they were no longer reflecting the world around her.They were

The first week without Jack was harder than Lela expected, even though she had told herself she was prepared. She had already survived months without him, but somehow those months had been different. Back then, she had been counting down toward his return, imagining the moment he would walk through the door and she could finally touch him again. Now there was no immediate countdown. Only an unknown number of days stretched ahead of her, each one carrying its own responsibilities, its own physical limitations, and its own quiet moments when she would instinctively look toward the front door, expecting to see him. The house seemed bigger without him. His shoes were gone from beside the couch. His jacket was no longer hanging over the chair. His coffee cup wasn't sitting beside the sink. Even Lily noticed the difference, asking for Daddy every morning and sometimes standing near the door as if she expected him to appear if she waited long enough.But something about Lela had changed.She