The Goodbye That Cut Deeper [POV: Abigail]
The familiar halls of the hospital felt different this time, colder, more distant. I had walked these corridors for years, yet now, they felt foreign, like I was trespassing in a place that no longer belonged to me.
I had spent the past few days avoiding this moment, telling myself that facing Nate wouldn’t change anything. That I had made my choice and there was no going back. But something inside me—guilt, regret, something worse—kept pushing me toward him.
And now, here I was, searching for a man who might never want to see me again.
I caught sight of him down the hall, his presence as familiar as ever. His dark hair slightly tousled, his expression serious as he flipped through a patient’s chart. But something was different. His posture, the set of his shoulders—he wasn’t the same Nate I had left behind.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Nate.”
He heard me. I knew he did. His hand stiffened around the clipboard, but he didn’t turn around. Instead, he kept walking.
My heart squeezed in my chest, but I quickened my pace, determined to catch up. “Nate, please, talk to me.”
This time, he stopped. Slowly, he turned, his expression unreadable. His eyes—once so warm, so patient—now held something distant, something I didn’t recognize.
“We have nothing to talk about,” he said simply.
I flinched at the finality in his tone. “Nate, I—”
“I get it, Aby,” he cut me off, his voice flat, emotionless. “You don’t have to explain anything. You don’t owe me anything.”
That wasn’t true. I did owe him something. An explanation, an apology, something.
But how could I even begin?
How could I tell him that I hadn’t planned to hurt him? That I had spent nights wondering if I was making a mistake? That walking away from him hadn’t been as easy as it looked?
That, deep down, a part of me still wasn’t sure if I had done the right thing?
But none of that would fix anything now.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I murmured.
He let out a quiet breath, something resembling a bitter laugh. “Then why did you?”
The words were so simple, so brutally direct, that I couldn’t even answer.
I looked away, my throat tightening, my fingers clenching around the hem of my coat.
“You could have just told me no,” Nate continued. “You could have been honest from the start. Instead, you disappeared. You let me believe I had a chance—only to take it away the second he showed up.”
I felt my chest ache at his words, at the raw truth behind them.
I had done that.
I had left him with nothing but questions, and now, when I finally came back, I expected him to listen?
“I was confused, Nate,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Confused?” he repeated, shaking his head. “You weren’t confused, Abigail. You were waiting. Waiting to see if he’d fight for you. And the second he did, you went running back.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn’t.
Because he was right.
“But it doesn’t matter now,” Nate said, shaking his head like he was done carrying the weight of this conversation. His lips twisted into a humorless smile. “I heard you got back with your ex. Married him and everything.”
His eyes met mine, and in them, I saw something that shattered me more than his anger ever could.
Indifference.
“Congratulations, Aby. I hope you’re finally happy this time.”
Then he turned and walked away.
I stood there, frozen, watching as he disappeared down the hall, as if we had never been anything at all.
For the first time since I left, since I chose Vincent, I felt something I hadn’t expected.
Regret.
I forced myself to move, blinking away the sting in my eyes as I pushed through the hospital doors and stepped outside.
And then—
I stopped.
My breath caught in my throat, my stomach twisting at the sight before me.
Standing by the entrance, waiting, was Hannah.
She was different. Nothing like the fragile, broken woman I had last seen in my clinic. Gone was the desperate look in her eyes, the self-destruction hanging off her every movement.
Now, she was poised. Put together. Her dark hair was sleek, her makeup subtle yet striking. There was no emptiness in her eyes this time, no hesitation in the way she held herself.
She was whole.
And then—
She turned to Nate.
I watched, frozen, as she reached for him, as her fingers curled into the lapels of his coat. He hesitated for half a secondbefore she pulled him down and kissed him.
