Chapter 13
Harvey POV:
The doctor flipped through the lab reports, a faint scowl deepening the lines on his forehead.
"A minor head trauma, but that’s the least of her worries."
He pointed to the X-ray clipped to the light box.
"This hardware... it should have been pulled six months ago. She’s pushed it way past the limit."
My stomach dropped.
"What are the consequences of waiting this long?"
"It fuses with the marrow," he explained clinically. "It makes the extraction significantly more difficult. Recovery won't be easy, either."
He added, almost as an afterthought, "She’s lucky she didn't re-fracture it today. Looking at a leg full of steel like this... she’s damn lucky to be walking at all."
I stopped hearing him after that.
Every piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place.
I knew why she was so desperate for those bonuses.
I knew exactly what she meant when she said she was scared.
The pain in my chest was so sharp I could barely draw air.
I walked out of the office in a daze and found my way back to Freya.
She was in the observation room, finally asleep from the sheer exhaustion of the trauma.
Her breathing was steady, her brow slightly furrowed.
This morning, looking at her in her sleep had filled me with bliss.
Now, there was only agony.
Only a crushing, soul-deep shame.
I took her hand in mine, rubbing it gently, trying to imagine the hell she’d endured these past two years.
No—
I couldn't.
I didn't dare.
I had seen the videos and photos of these surgeries online, the kind that make your skin crawl and your stomach turn.
And that was her reality.
She had lived through it, and because of the delay, she had to face it all over again.
I finally understood why she never picked up , no matter how many different numbers I tried.
While I was chasing the high of my career and the thrill of a promotion, she was drowning in pain, fighting just to survive.
And every bit of it—every single scar—was on me.
Freya stirred, her consciousness drifting back to the surface.
I tightened my grip on her hand.
"Freya? How do you feel?"
My throat was so thick with emotion it felt like I was swallowing glass.
She didn't open her eyes.
A single, weak word escaped her lips.
"Hurts..."
My heart wasn't just breaking; it was being torn apart.
I pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.
"Don't be scared. I'm right here. I’m not going anywhere."
She blinked slowly, shifting her weight until she could see me.
I tried to smile, but my face wouldn't cooperate.
I managed only a jagged, pathetic twitch of the lips.
I pulled her hand against my cheek, desperate for the contact.
But she slowly, deliberately, pulled her hand away.
Her voice was like a winter wind.
"What are you doing here?"
She closed her eyes again, refusing to give me even a second glance.
My breath caught in my throat.
A thousand apologies were fighting to get out, but I couldn't find the strength to voice them.
Finally, I managed one broken sentence.
"Freya... I know everything. I'm so sorry."
She turned away from me, facing the wall.
It felt like an eternity before she spoke.
"Does 'sorry' change anything?"
The voice was faint, but it hit me with the force of a sledgehammer.
My breathing turned shallow.
My mind was a mess.
"I know it doesn't. I know. But... please, just give me a chance to make it right."
My voice was trembling, raw and unsteady.
I watched her back rise and fall with each breath.
Silence stretched between us, suffocating and heavy.
Finally, she spoke again, her voice barely a whisper.
"Harvey... your whole life, it’s always been about what you want to do. You just act. You never once stopped to ask me what I thought."
I flinched.
"I know... I handled it poorly," I rasped. "But I did it for us. Truly."
"You wanted the promotion. You wanted the fast track. And you signed that contract without even mentioning it to me.
“To you, I was just someone who needed to be notified after the fact, right?"
Her voice began to shake.
"If it had been something small, I would have moved on. I’d forgiven you a thousand times before.
“But that decision... it was five years of my life. Didn't my opinion count for anything at all?!"
My hands tightened on the edge of the bed, my knuckles turning a ghostly white.
"I’m sorry, Freya. I just... I wanted to give you a better life. That’s all I ever wanted."
"That’s what you wanted, Harvey.
“Not me."
I tried to argue, to defend myself, but the words died in my throat.
Because she was right.
And it was the truth.
I reached out, my fingers trembling as I smoothed her long hair.
My breathing was a jagged mess.
"I know... I made that choice. And if I hadn't left—"
I stopped.
The rest of the sentence hit a wall.
I couldn't bring myself to say it.
She kept her back to me, but I saw her shoulders begin to shake.
I knew she was crying.
And I knew—with a soul-crushing certainty—that I had no right to comfort her.
After a long, suffocating silence, she took a few shaky breaths to steady herself.
"It’s too late for 'what ifs.' The accident happened.
“Every bit of love I had for you, every hope I held onto...
“It was all crushed to pieces in that crash."
"Don't say that, Freya," I rasped, my voice cracking. "You have no idea what these two years have been like for me."
"I was saved, sure," she said, her voice suddenly, terrifyingly calm—as if she were narrating someone else's tragedy.
"But every day, looking at my broken body, I lost the will to keep going.
“While I was hovering between life and death, you were over there, weren't you? Living a full, meaningful life?"
"No, I wasn't," I choked out, the tears finally breaking through.
"I called you every single day from different numbers. For a solid month.
“I thought you were just angry. I thought, eventually, you’d pick up."
She let out a short, mocking laugh.
"My phone was smashed to splinters in the wreck, Harvey. I was lying in a hospital bed like a stitched-together ragdoll.
“And the only thing I thought about every day was how to die."
She let out a sharp, wet sniffle.
"Until I met Emily. She was the one who taught me how to live for myself."
I moved around the bed and dropped to my knees in front of her.
My trembling fingers reached out to brush away her tears.
"Freya, I know I messed up. But it wasn't supposed to end like this."
I was sobbing now, the sound raw and ugly.
"We were supposed to... we were supposed to make it to the end."
She closed her eyes, more tears escaping to track down her cheeks.
"You still think you were right, don't you, Harvey?"
She gave a small, tearful smile.
"You think the plan was perfect, and the outcome was just bad luck."
She opened her eyes then, her gaze clear and devastatingly firm.
"Go away. I don't want to see you."
The room seemed to dim.
I gripped the bedframe, my knuckles aching, desperate not to let go.
But she turned away again, giving me nothing but her back.
I let out a long, ragged sigh and forced myself to stand.
My legs felt like lead.
Before I left, I reached out one last time, wanting to touch her hair.
My hand hovered in the air for a few seconds, trembling, before I curled my fingers into a fist and pulled back.
The walk to the door was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
Standing at the threshold, I looked back one last time.
"Freya... do you hate me?"
She was silent for a heartbeat.
Then, softly:
"The love is gone, Harvey.
“Why would I bother with hate?"
My vision blurred.
I stumbled out of the observation room, my head spinning, and nearly collided with someone in the hallway.
I looked up.
It was Emily.
She was staring at me, her expression shifting from confusion to absolute, horrified disbelief.
"Harvey? You're the prick? You’re the ex-boyfriend?"
I could only nod, the weight of it finally breaking me.
She let out a cold, sharp laugh.
"Well, congratulations, Mr. Director. You really outdid yourself."
She brushed past me, heading for the room.
She was right.
I was a bastard.
A selfish, arrogant prick.
But I wasn't done.
I was going to win Freya back.
Even if she hated me.
Even if she didn't want me.
I wasn't letting her go a second time.