#Chapter 79: Something Real

DEREK I stood in the doorway to Aiden’s hospital room, barely breathing. Inside, the boy I had just learned was my son lay pale and still, surrounded by wires and monitors. The soft beep of machines echoed in the sterile silence, steady but too quiet. Like a heartbeat you didn’t trust to keep going. Elena sat at his side, her fingers wrapped gently around his much smaller ones. She hadn’t looked up when I opened the door. Hadn’t moved at all. Her posture was rigid, but the grief in it was unmistakable. She looked like she was holding herself together by sheer force of will. I didn’t blame her. The truth still hadn’t fully landed in my chest. My son. My son. Those words felt too large, too fragile. I didn’t know how to hold them without dropping something that mattered. He was mine. He always had been. And I hadn’t known. I stepped quietly into the room, each footfall feeling loud against the tile. The scent of antiseptic burned my nose, but beneath it was something wa