20. Chapter 20 #2
I move through the morning like I always do—focused, polite, capable. Customers smile. Someone asks if I’m okay, and I give the answer they expect.
I’m fine. All good.
That’s all everyone hears and sees.
They see the calm. The competence. The woman who shows up, handles things, keeps going.
They don’t see the tight coil of fury under my skin or the way my body aches when I reach for something too quickly.
They don’t see the bruises hidden beneath fabric or the scrapes I’ve memorized so I don’t accidentally touch them.
There was only one real moment in my life when others saw me actually break.
The day I lost my baby. My little Danny.
I went from holding him—barely—to not holding him at all. From a few fragile minutes in the NICU, his skin warm against my palms, to a heart monitor screaming and hands moving too fast around us. One moment, he was here, and the next, he wasn’t breathing. And then there was nothing anyone could do.
No one knows why. The doctors believed it to be related to the trauma of the accident. Or his lungs—still too small, too unfinished from being born early. Possibly both. Possibly neither. The reasons don’t matter. The outcome does.
I was alone when it happened.
Cole was in another part of the hospital, recovering from injuries he caused himself. Drugged and drunk. Broken in a way people could see and treat.
I was left to watch our son slip away without him. No one holding my hand. No one sharing the significance of that moment. No one else sensing the exact second my world ceased to exist.
The grief didn’t arrive gently. It didn’t wait its turn or ask permission.
It ripped through me, violent and absolute.
I remember the sound I made—raw and animal, something torn straight from my chest before I could stop it.
I remember collapsing, my body surrendering to a truth my mind still refused to accept.
I didn’t care who saw me. I didn’t care what I looked like. There was nothing left to protect.
The agony was so extreme it seemed tangible, like my body was drawing inward, crumbling from the void Danny had left.
I fell to the cold hospital floor, the chill seeping through my skin, grounding me in a moment that seemed otherwise unreal.
That floor was the only thing holding me tethered to this world when my soul split open.
When Cole recovered enough to face me, it was clear he hadn’t lost what I had.
He hadn’t heard the alarms. He hadn’t felt Danny’s fragile weight in his hands.
He hadn’t watched his chest stop rising.
And because he never witnessed it—never had to endure that moment—he didn’t know how to meet me in that kind of loss.
He was too selfish to understand a grief that wasn’t his. Too weak to hold pain he hadn’t experienced. He didn’t understand how to comfort me.
It required him to step outside himself, and for someone as selfish as him, he didn’t know how.
Losing Danny was like something essential had been torn from me—like a piece of my soul had been taken with him, leaving behind a hollow I wasn’t equipped to survive.
Losing my baby was the only grief I was ever allowed to have out loud. It was sudden. Public. Impossible to hide. The kind of pain that demanded space because it spilled out whether I wanted it to or not.
And maybe that’s why people think, that was the worst of it. That I divorced Cole because the grief was too much. That’s what the Allister’s alleged so our divorce didn’t scandalize the family.
Because it was visible, had witnesses, and fit the kind of grief people possess the ability to recognize and respond to.
They didn’t see everything that came before it. Or everything that came after.
They didn’t see the quiet endurance. The years of swallowing anger. The way I learned to function around pain instead of through it. They didn’t see how quickly I learned that falling apart was perilous—that if I stayed there too long, I might never find a way back to myself.
It took time, but I don’t allow myself to live there. I move forward because I have to. Standing still has never been safe.
This version of me—the calm, capable one—isn’t fake. It’s made.
Val’s still at the counter, fielding questions with practiced ease, when the door chime sounds.
I glance up from behind the counter, serving cinnamon rolls.
I sense him before I see him. Alex.
No tailored button-up shirt and dress pants. No sweatpants or hoodie. Just jeans and a fitted T-shirt made to mold his torso. Casual. And somehow even more sexy than last night. His hair is still slightly damp, like he showered and came straight here.
The room seems to notice him all at once.
He scans the shop before his eyes land on me. When they do, something in his expression softens. Relief, maybe. Or confirmation that I made it in and I’m okay.
He gives me a small nod. Nothing dramatic. I’m here.
And for reasons I don’t fully understand, that simple presence steadies me more than anything else has today.
I straighten a little behind the counter, aware of myself in a way that is unrelated to fear and everything to do with being seen.
Val follows my gaze and arches a brow, a slow smile tugging at her lips. “Well,” she murmurs, “what do we have here?”
Alex steps closer, voice low. “Good morning, Lina.”
“Hi Alex. Good morning,” I reply.
It’s ordinary. Simple. Safe. And yet, something shifts.