Chapter 55
Evelyn
I couldn’t stop shaking. No matter how warm the blanket was.
No matter how soft Sammy’s touch felt when she tucked my hair behind my ear.
No matter how many times she whispered, “You’re safe now.
” Because I wasn’t. Not really. Not when those images were burned into the back of my eyelids like they’d been branded there.
Alexander. His fists. The blood. The man’s face—half-familiar, half-nightmare—slack under the weight of his blows. And then the way Alexander looked at me when I turned around…like he was afraid of himself. Like he was already grieving something he hadn’t lost yet. And the way I ran.
God. The way I ran.
My chest was so tight it hurt to breathe. I hadn’t eaten in hours. My stomach twisted and clenched like it was trying to escape me. I sat at Sammy’s counter with ginger tea and toast I couldn’t taste. “I’m fine,” I whispered.
A lie so thin it disintegrated in the air.
Sammy just folded her arms and stared at me the way only your best friend can—like she can see through skin and bone straight to the truth.
By 10 a.m., I’d thrown up three times. By 11, I couldn’t stand without the room tilting sideways. By noon, I was curled up on the cold tiles of her bathroom floor, clutching my stomach and praying—begging—that nothing was wrong with the babies.
Sammy didn’t hesitate. She never does.
The hospital lights were too bright. Too sterile.
Too white. Like they were trying to wipe the shadows off me.
Monitors beeped around my head. Wires clung to my arms. A nurse kept checking my vitals, frowning like she could already see the storm inside me.
“You’re dehydrated,” she said gently. “And severely stressed. We need to keep you overnight.”
Overnight?
No, no, no.
I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t stay still long enough to think—to feel—to remember. I shifted on the bed. My heart picked up speed. The monitor shrieked. Another nurse came over immediately. “Deep breaths, Evelyn. The babies are fine. But you’re not. We need you to rest.”
Rest.
As if rest could stitch together the tear inside me. As if sleep could scrub the blood off Alexander’s hands. As if peace could exist where fear had taken root. They didn’t understand. They couldn’t.
I wasn’t just tired. I was unraveling.
Every trauma I’d buried. Every memory I’d refused to name. I thought I’d conquered every fear. All of it came roaring back the moment I saw him on that screen. And the worst part that made guilt scrape against my ribs—I missed him.
Even after everything…I missed the sound of his voice. I missed the way he held me like I was something holy. I missed his gravity, the certainty, the warmth.
But how do you trust a man after you’ve seen the monster he becomes when he thinks no one is watching? How do you raise children with someone who breaks bones in secret rooms and hides the truth behind locked doors?
Tears burned hot at the edges of my eyes. I turned my face toward the wall, away from the hallway, away from the possibility of him standing there. I didn’t want to see him. Not yet. Not until I knew who he really was. Not until I knew who I had to become to survive loving him.