The apples feel heavier than they should—three bright, harmless spheres in a cheap plastic bag, digging into the tender flesh of my palm. My pulse hasn't steadied since the moment the elevator doors closed on Adrian and his impossibly elegant mother. I stand rooted to the spot in the hospital corridor, trying to breathe normally, trying to pretend my insides didn't twist into a tight, burning knot the instant I saw him soften beside her.
Of course he has a soft side. He just never spent it on me.
The sight of him holding his mother's elbow with quiet care, adjusting her scarf so gently it made my chest ache… it felt like watching an alternate universe. A version of him I never got. A version I never deserved in his mind.
I push the feeling away—hard—and start toward Mia's mother's room. The corridor smells like antiseptic and overcooked vegetables, the universal perfume of hospitals. The farther I walk, the easier my lungs work, until finally I push through the doorway and Mia is there— small and petite, a woman that attracted looks from women and men alike, yet eyes puffy from worrying all night, hair in a messy bun, hope and relief battling on her face.
"There you are," she breathes, grabbing the apples out of my hand and pulling me into a hug so tight it nearly squeezes the air out of me. "Thank you. You're a lifesaver."
I let her hug me. I let her press her forehead briefly to my shoulder. I let her believe I'm the steady one, the dependable one, the one who isn't currently drowning under debt sharks and emotional shrapnel.
"How is she?" I ask.
Mia gestures toward the bed. "She woke up asking for apples. I swear she likes you more than she likes me."
Her mother is propped up with pillows, face pale from anesthesia but her smile genuine when she sees me. "My beautiful angel," she says, reaching out. "Come here."
For the next hour, I peel apples, slice them, feed her slow bites while she tells us stories about nurses she liked and nurses she didn't. Mia laughs. I laugh. It all feels almost normal. Almost peaceful.
Almost like I am someone who hasn't been ripped open twice in twenty-four hours.
Her mother pats my hand. "You're a blessing, Lena. Truly."
The words crack something deep inside me because kindness always hits harder than cruelty. I swallow it down, bury it, and keep smiling.
When visiting hours end, I kiss her forehead, squeeze Mia's hand, and promise to check on them tomorrow. Then I step outside and the cold air slaps me full in the face like punishment.
I stand on the sidewalk with my breath fogging out in little bursts, my pulse still echoing the hospital hallway scene.
Seeing him.
Seeing her.
Seeing the way she looked at me.
Adrian Vale with a woman—his mother—walking beside him like they're a single unit. His body protective, her gaze sharp and curious. And me, standing there like the ghost of a past he'd rather burn than acknowledge.
I rub my arms through my sweater, trying to chase warmth back into my skin.
Because the truth is humming too loudly to ignore:
Nothing is over with Adrian Vale.
Nothing has been resolved.
And fate is clearly done giving us distance.
He is circling my world again.
And I am circling his.
Whether either of us wants it or not.
I pull in a breath, tighten my grip on the strap of my bag, and start walking toward the bus stop… but the cold keeps biting, and my thoughts keep replaying.
Eight years ago, he bruised my heart.
Last night, he bruised my pride.
Today, he bruised something I didn't even know was still alive in me.
But there is something else too—something sharp and unfinished.
The way his mother looked at me.
Not like a stranger.
Not like a threat.
More like a puzzle piece she hadn't expected to find today.
A gorgeous, polite young woman who gave her son as good as she got—ice for ice, frost for frost—and didn't flinch under his voice. She saw it. She caught the flicker. She felt the tension even if she couldn't yet place its history.
I keep walking, boots crunching on gravel, replaying the way Adrian subtly shifted his body—just enough to block his mother's view of me. Not protective. Not territorial. More defensive, as if shielding her from a messy truth.
His mother must think he hasn't had a woman in years.
She wouldn't be wrong.
Eight years, according to Mia's gossip. Eight years of work and rage and walls. Eight years of freezing people out. Eight years since me.
My stomach twists.
And with every step away from the hospital, something inside me knots tighter—not because I still care, but because I know with unshakable certainty that fate isn't finished with us.
Not even close.
When I board the bus home and sink into the cracked vinyl seat, the reality hits harder:
The debt is still due.
The checks are still in my drawer.
Jaden Taemin is circling like a vulture.
The loan sharks aren't patient.
Adrian is a storm waiting at the edge of my life.
And somewhere inside that hospital, his mother is dying.
And she saw me today.
God help us all.
I lean my head against the cold window as the bus rattles through the city, trying to steady my heartbeat, but the more distance I put between myself and that hospital, the more the truth gnaws at my ribs. I can feel it—an invisible cord, thin but unbreakable, tugging tight between me and Adrian. A cord woven from eight years of silence, one brutal night in his penthouse, and the raw, wordless recognition that sparked the instant our eyes met again.
His mother didn't know who I was, but she sensed it—the static, the tension, the way we both stiffened like two magnets dragged too close.
The hospital doors slide shut behind me with a hiss that feels almost personal, like the building itself is exhaling in relief to see me go. I step out into the evening air and the cold rushes over me, sharp enough to sting the back of my throat. My fingers ache around the empty plastic bag, the thin handles carving lines into my skin long after the weight of the apples is gone. I shove the bag in a trash bin and wrap my arms tightly around myself as if pressure alone can hold my insides together.
The exhaustion crawls through me in strange, uneven waves. It's the kind of tired that doesn't sit just in the muscles. It coils behind the ribs, in the stomach, at the base of the skull. It makes breathing feel like work, thinking feel like wading through wet sand, functioning feel like I'm trying to move through a dream I can't quite wake from. I can still smell antiseptic on my hands, the ghost of apple sweetness mixed with hospital air lingering on my skin like something that refuses to be washed away.
My body wants to collapse. My mind wants to scream. And my heart, traitorous and bruised, keeps replaying the moment I saw Adrian reach out, adjust his mother's scarf, tuck a loose piece of hair behind her ear with a gentleness that made something in me twist painfully. It was the tenderness he never let me see, the softness he buried so deeply that I believed he didn't have it at all. The sight of it cuts deeper than it should. It cuts because it proves he had warmth all along; he just chose not to give it to me.
The sky is fading into a bruised purple as I walk toward the bus stop, each step uneven with the weight of the day. The cold air needles its way through my sweater, crawling along my spine, but I keep moving. The burn of fatigue sits heavy behind my eyes and I blink hard to keep my vision steady. I hate how much he still affects me, how the sight of him can drag up eight years of buried memories like they were waiting right under the surface.
I sit heavily on the bus-stop bench, the metal freezing against the back of my legs. A woman next to me glances over with sympathetic eyes, maybe reading the exhaustion in my slumped shoulders or the tension clawing at the corners of my mouth. I look away quickly, not in the mood for anyone's kindness. Kindness cracks me open. Kindness makes me feel how tired I truly am.
Everything hurts tonight. My body. My thoughts. My past. My future. Even the air feels bruised.
When the bus arrives, I climb on and sink into the seat closest to the window, resting my forehead against the cold glass. The city blurs into streaks of orange lights and gray silhouettes. My breath fogs against the window, each exhale louder than I expect, as if my lungs are trying to remind me I'm still alive.
But life feels heavy.
All of it.
The debt.
The money in my drawer that shouldn't exist.
The threat ticking closer every day.
Jaden's message.
My parents' hope.
Adrian's eyes when he saw me.
A knot forms in my throat so tight I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. I refuse to fall apart on public transport. Not when I've held myself together through worse. I swallow hard and force my breathing back into something resembling normal.
But nothing in me is normal anymore.
Not after last night.
Not after today.
Not after seeing him soften only for her.
The bus jolts, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I grip the railing as if the sudden movement could throw me into a future I'm not prepared to face.
And I know, deep down, that the future is circling closer, no matter how much I try to outrun it.
No matter how much I pretend Adrian Vale isn't orbiting my life again.
Because he is.
And whatever is coming isn't gentle.