Chapter 1441:
Before leaving, each turned to look at him again—worried, helpless, afraid he would crumble the moment they closed the door.
The latch clicked shut.
Myron finally turned toward Millie. Through the glass, her fragile form lay motionless, her body threaded with tubes and wires, every machine breathing on her behalf. The soft beeping echoed in the small corridor, a reminder that she was still fighting for her life.
He walked closer, step by unsteady step, until he reached the glass separating them. His eyes reddened, shimmering under the fluorescent lights.
Then something flickered across his expression. A memory, a thought, something that tugged at the corner of his mouth. A smile formed—thin, brittle, twisted by sorrow rather than joy.
“Millie,” he breathed, the word cracking. “I have become so strange.”
His fingers curled against the glass. “I never knew I was this fragile… this easily undone.”
Losing control of everything… throwing caution away…
His breath hitched. “I used to believe that if I planned carefully enough, if I made all the right moves, things would always fall into place. But I now think… I was wrong. I’m out of options, Millie.”
He leaned his weight against the barrier between them, as if his body refused to hold itself up any longer. “Please… get better. Come back to me.”
His voice sank to a trembling whisper. “I cannot live without you.”
Nothing inside the ICU room had changed. Millie still lay motionless on the bed, her skin almost ghostly white, while the machines continued their endless, rhythmic beeping. No matter how many times Myron tried calling her name, it felt like she would never open her eyes again.
A quiet knock sounded at the door.
𝙉𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙖𝙩 𝙂𝖆𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝖊𝗅𝘀・ⅽ𝘰𝗺
Myron turned to see Ari lingering in the doorway. Ari made her way over and stood close to Myron.
“Dad,” Ari whispered, her voice barely above a breath.
Myron’s hand balled into a fist at his side, shaking with the effort it took to stay composed. He summoned every bit of strength he had just to hold himself together.
Trying to keep his voice gentle, he asked, “Are you still in pain?”
He avoided meeting Ari’s eyes, focusing instead on the freshly bandaged cuts along her neck and arms—the same ones Macauley had caused. The doctor had already stitched them up, and the wounds were now wrapped carefully in clean bandages.
“It still stings… but I’ll be fine,” Ari said with a nod, her voice shaky and her eyes rimmed red with tears.
She reached over, brushing her fingers over Myron’s knee with care.
“Uncle Charles told me you went to the mountain church to pray for Mom, and you hurt your knees,” she whispered. “Does it hurt a lot, Dad?”
Myron gave a faint shake of his head, forcing a small smile. “It’s nothing. It’ll heal before you know it.”
Ari paused for a moment, then slid even closer, lowering herself to blow gently on his scraped knee.
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.
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