Chapter 293

Ella looked even more delicate in her sleep, her pale face tugging at anyone’s heartstrings—it was hard not to want to protect her. Honestly, if anyone saw their first love like this, they’d probably react the same way Henry did. Back in the day, she was the girl who made his heart race, but he couldn’t do anything for her back then. Now, after all these years, everything had changed, and they were both shadows of who they used to be. Her clothes were a mess—filthy, torn, totally unwearable. Henry opened the closet to get her something clean, but I reached out and took them from him. “I’ll do it. Maya’s still not that close to me, so you should go check on her instead. You’ll handle it better.” I said this while nudging him toward the hallway and got to work changing Ella’s clothes. As I undressed her, I noticed there were way more scars than I’d expected—some faint, others angry and deep. Clearly, a lot of them were old, from past beatings. It was shocking. There’s this quote from Eil