Chapter Fifteen
Kingston stared at the rows of lockers in the dim hospital corridor, the fluorescent lights buzzing faintly overhead.
The place felt emptier than usual, though maybe that was just him.
He had been avoiding Rebecca, skipping lunch breaks, staying in different wings, taking shifts that didn’t overlap.
But Rebecca wasn’t the type to let go quietly.
“King.”
Her voice came from behind him, soft but steady. He closed his eyes before turning, bracing himself. Rebecca stood there, arms folded across her chest, her expression carefully composed. She looked tired with dark circles beneath her eyes, lips pressed too tightly.
“You’ve been dodging me,” she said.
Kingston shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy ignoring me, you mean.” She stepped closer. “We need to talk.”
He wanted to walk away. Every cell in his body screamed for distance but he forced himself to stand still, to face her, because avoiding it hadn’t solved anything.
“Rebecca…” His voice was rough. “Whatever this was, it’s over.”
Her face faltered, just slightly, before she smoothed it into a smile. “You don’t mean that. You’re just upset. Ashley threw you out, didn’t she?”
The words landed like a punch. He flinched, his jaw tightening.
Rebecca’s eyes softened, her tone lowering. “I’m not trying to rub salt in the wound. I’m saying… you don’t have to be alone. I’m here. I’ve always been here.”
Kingston shook his head, the guilt pressing heavier. “You don’t understand. I don’t want this. I don’t want you.”
Her expression hardened. “You didn’t seem to mind when you were in my bed.”
He winced. Memories surged, nights tangled in sheets, the adrenaline, the escape. It had felt like passion then, but now, looking back, it was hollow. Empty.
“I was broken,” he admitted. “I was drowning in my own failures, and you were there but it wasn’t love. It wasn’t even what I wanted and it was a way to run from myself. From my life and it cost me everything that mattered.”
Rebecca’s arms fell to her sides, her mouth parting. “So what was I to you, then? A mistake? A distraction?”
The word stung, but he nodded. “Yes.” His voice cracked. “You were never Ashley. You never could be. I was too much of a coward to face that.”
Silence stretched between them, sharp and suffocating.
Finally, Rebecca’s eyes glassed over, though she blinked the tears back. “I gave you years of my life, Kingston. Even before her and when you married Ashley, I thought I moved on but when I was transferred here, when we reconnected, I believed maybe it was fate giving us another chance.”
Kingston swallowed, his chest heavy. “It wasn’t fate. It was temptation and I should’ve fought it. I should’ve fought harder for my wife, for my kids, for myself.”
Rebecca’s chin trembled, but she lifted it higher, trying to preserve some dignity. “Then I guess there’s nothing left to say.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Except I’m sorry. For dragging you into this. For letting it go on when I knew it was wrong.”
She let out a shaky laugh. “Sorry doesn’t fix the mess we’ve made.”
“No,” he agreed, voice low. “But it’s all I have.”
Rebecca looked at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. Then she straightened, tugging her bag higher on her shoulder. “I put in for a transfer. Another hospital in another city. I’ll be gone in a few weeks.”
His chest eased, just slightly. “That’s probably best. For both of us.”
She nodded once, sharply. Then her eyes softened for just a second, old echoes of the girl he once dated. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Kingston. Though I think you already had it, and you let it slip away.”
He couldn’t argue. He only watched as she turned and walked down the hall, her footsteps fading.
When she was gone, he leaned against the lockers, pressing his forehead to the cool metal.
The spark was gone. The affair had burned itself out, leaving only ashes and the ruins of his marriage.
For the first time since it all began, he felt clarity.
No more confusion. No more excuses. He had loved Ashley, still loved her, and everything else had been a betrayal of that truth but clarity didn’t mean redemption and he didn’t know if he’d ever get the chance to prove it.
Kingston hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were bloodshot, his jawline shadowed with stubble he hadn’t cared to shave.
Every time he walked into the hospital, the smell of antiseptic clawed at him, too close to the night everything broke apart.
He scrolled through his phone obsessively, rereading the unanswered messages he had sent Ashley.
It didn’t matter that she hadn’t replied.
His thumbs still tapped out desperate words, hoping one day she’d read them.
Ash, please. Talk to me. I made the worst mistake of my life.
I’ll do anything to fix this. Don’t shut me out.
The kids need us. I need you. The last one sat unsent in his drafts. Too raw. Too exposing.
Ashley, meanwhile, was trying to stitch her days together into something livable.
Mornings began with Leah’s cheerful insistence on making pancakes, flour dusting the kitchen counter while Susan kept little Will occupied with crayons.
Ashley had never been good at mornings, but now she forced herself to rise early, to breathe through the ache in her chest and pretend normalcy for the children’s sake.
At the hospital, she buried herself in patient charts, leaning on her colleagues for the kind of steady presence she used to get from Kingston.
Sometimes she caught herself reaching for her phone, wanting to share a funny case note or vent about a long shift, only to remember there was no “them” anymore.
Leah was her anchor. Every night, her sister would sit with her on the couch, feet tucked under a blanket, tea steaming in her hands.
“You don’t have to figure it all out right now,” Leah said one evening, voice gentle but steady. “One day at a time, Ash.”
Ashley nodded “I just… I keep wondering what I did wrong. Was I not enough? Did I miss the signs?”
Leah squeezed her hand. “You were more than enough. This isn’t about you, it’s about him. His choices. His weakness. Don’t carry his sins on your shoulders.”
Susan, too, became a quiet source of strength.
She showed up on weekends, whisking the kids away to the park, giving Ashley hours of solitude she didn’t know she needed.
Kingston tried calling again that night.
She didn’t answer, but she read the messages that followed I told Rebecca it’s over.
For good. I’m not asking for forgiveness.
I’m asking for a chance to be in your life.
In the kids’ lives. I know I broke us. But I don’t want to lose us forever.
Ashley stared at the screen for a long time before setting the phone down. Her chest tightened, but this time, she didn’t cry. Instead, she whispered to the empty room, “I don’t know if we can ever come back from this.” And for the first time since the night she found out, she meant it.
Kingston lay awake, staring at the ceiling of his lonely apartment, her silence echoing louder than any rejection.
He thought of Ashley’s laugh, the warmth of her skin beside him at night, the way she always knew how to calm his storms. He thought of their children’s faces, the family dinners, the rituals of love that had once seemed unshakable and he realized, with brutal clarity, that no amount of begging could undo the shattering.
Ashley wasn’t the one drifting away. He was the one who had let go first. Now he was left with the wreckage, praying she might one day let him back in not as her husband, maybe, but as something.
Anything. The dawn came cold, both of them staring into different horizons, bound by grief yet pulled by the slow, relentless tide of moving on.