Chapter 20 Breaking Point
*Mia’s POV**
Cold. So cold.
The hospital doors hiss behind me. Words echo, bounce and shatter in my head.
*“We can’t guarantee. You should prepare yourself…“*
The machines beeping. Keep beeping,
No. Don’t think. Just walk. One foot. Then another. The parking lot swims before my eyes, street lamps bleeding into the darkness. Like watercolors. Like the ones Mom used to paint with me, before everything.
My feet carried me forward mechanically. The parking lot stretched endlessly ahead, street lamps casting pools of sickly yellow light. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if my body was finally collapsing under the weight of everything I’d lost.
Focus. Have to focus. But everything’s spinning. Slipping. Like sand through my fingers. Like everything else.
*“The experimental procedures are risky…“*
My babies. My dreams. And now Mom.
The concrete under my feet doesn’t feel real. Nothing feels real anymore. Maybe I’m not real either. Maybe I died at the bottom of those stairs with my babies, and this is just..lights. Bright. Too bright.
A horn screams through the fog in my head. Metal gleams. Engine roars.
A car horn blared, startling me from my daze. Headlights bore down, blindingly bright. I stood frozen, my mind struggling to process the danger.
I should move. Why can’t I move?
Strong arms yanked me backward. The car swerved past, its driver shouting obscenities. The force of being pulled back sent me stumbling against a solid chest. A familiar cologne filled my senses
“What the hell were you thinking?” Kyle’s voice vibrated through his chest, fury barely contained. His hands gripped my shoulders, hard enough to bruise. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
I looked up at him, at that perfectly sculpted face twisted with rage. Something inside me snapped.
“Don’t.” My voice came out raw.
I can’t breathe. His hands on my shoulders. Hurts..
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Am I?
“Don’t.” The word scrapes my throat. Raw.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t you dare pretend to care now.”
“Pretend?” His fingers dig deeper. “You nearly walked into traffic!”
“Why…” My voice cracks. Splinters. “Why does it matter to you, Kyle?”
Mia-”
“No!” Push against him. “Stop acting like you”
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+25 BONUS
“Like I what?”
The dam breaks. Words pour out, messy and tangled and wrong.
“Like you’re my husband! Like you care if I…“You left me there. On the floor. Bleeding! Don’t you remember?”
“That’s not
“YOU CHOSE HER!” The scream tears from my throat. “Always her Taylor calls and you… you…”
Memories flash. Lightning–bright. Burning.
Taylor was at the top of the stairs. She was smiling. Winner’s smile And Mom in the hospital bed. Tubes are everywhere.
“I can’t. I can’t lose her too. Kyle. Not like this. I lost everything now
“Your mother will be fine. I’ve arranged-
“Arranged?” Laugh bubbles up. Tastes like tears. “Like you arranged everthing?”
His face blurs. Or maybe those are just more tears.
“I wish…” Words come faster now. Flooding. Drowning us both. “I wish I’d never seen you that day. In high school. With her. So perfect together. Kyle and Taylor. K.T. Enterprises. Your great love story written across the whole city while I…”
“Stop.”
“Why? Because you don’t want to hear how pathetic I was? Am? Watching you love her. Year after year. Hoping maybe… maybe if I was good enough… quiet enough… maybe you’d see me?”
“Mia, you’re not-
“I’m nothing!” The words explode out of me. “Nothing but your convenient arrangement. Your perfect little secretary who signed your perfect little contract and lost your… lost our…”
I really can’t breathe.
The world tilts. Spins. And his strong arms catch me before the darkness does.
“Stop fighting me.” His voice comes from far away. Through water Through years of pretending not to love him.
The car moves. Or maybe the world does. City lights streak past like shooting stars. Remember, Mom? When we used to wish on stars? Before Dad left? Before everything broke?
“You’re going to kill yourself driving like this.” The words come automatically.
His knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Help?”
The car swerves sharply into our driveway. His driveway. Nothing here is really mine.
“Get out.” His voice is tight. Controlled. Always so controlled.
“Why?”
“Damn it, Mia!”
The door slams. Then he’s at my side, unbuckling my seatbelt with shaking hands.
“I’m tired.” The words come out small. Broken. “So tired, Kyle. Of pretending. Of watching you love her. Of losing everything I…
11
He lifts me from the car like I weigh nothing. Like that night he carried me to bed, before he knew about the babies. Before
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Chapter 20 Breaking Point-
everything shattered.
“Then stop pretending.” His heart pounds under my ear. Or maybe that’s mine. “Stop fighting me.”
+25 BONUS
“I never fought you.” My fingers clutch his shirt. Designer. Expensive. Everything about him is expensive. “I just loved you. That was my mistake.”
He freezes on the stairs. Just for a moment. Then keeps climbing.
Our bedroom. Not ours. Never really ours.
“Sleep.” His hands are gentle now. Taking off my coat. Like I’m something breakable. “You need to rest.”
“Why are you being kind?” The words slip out. “It hurts more when you’re kind.”
He stills. Something flickers in those storm–grey eyes.
“Because I-” He stops, Swallows. “Just sleep, Mia.”
The bed feels too big. Too empty. Like my womb. Like my heart.
“Kyle?”
He pauses at the door.
“I really did love you. Even when you were cruel. But I am too tired. I give up.”
Silence stretches.
“I know.” His voice is rough.
The door closes softly behind him. Like everything else between us Soft. Quiet. Never quite real.
I curl around my empty stomach, where our babies used to be. Mom’s voice echoes in my head from years ago:
*“Sometimes love isn’t enough, sweetheart. Sometimes it just breaks you.‘
She was right. About everything.
I close my eyes, too tired to cry anymore.
11*
