Chapter 299

The room was too quiet without her. I’d asked Mira to leave, told her I needed rest. The words had come out clipped, controlled, the way I always tried to sound when everything inside me was anything but steady. She’d hesitated, then gone, and the soft click of the door behind her was sharper than any blade. I told myself this was for the best. She deserved a life unshackled by someone half-broken, someone who might never hold her the way she deserved again. Better to push her away now than let her waste years watching me struggle. And yet, as I lay there staring at the empty chair, the weight in my chest grew heavier with each breath. The minutes dragged. My hand throbbed with a dull ache, a constant reminder of what I might have lost. My heart ached worse. I tried closing my eyes, tried drifting back into the fever fog, but sleep wouldn’t come. All I could think of was her face when I’d turned her away. The hurt she’d tried to hide, the way her eyes had lingered on me as though she w