I stand frozen outside the hospital entrance, my breath clouding the air as I watch her walk away.
Abigail.
She moves with the same quiet grace I’ve always admired, but there’s something new now — an ease, a sense of belonging as she leans into him.
The man by her side wraps an arm around her, his head dipping slightly as he speaks softly to her on the way to the parking lot. She laughs quietly and shortly, and it’s a sound I haven’t heard in what feels like an eternity.
The bouquet of tulips now laying in the snow with a muted thud. I stare at them, the stark white petals slowly disappearing beneath the falling snow, much like the life I once imagined with her.
The realization hits like a physical blow, driving the air from my lungs. The things I’ve done, the choices I’ve made — they’ve led me here, standing alone in the cold, watching the only woman I’ve ever truly loved walk away with someone else.
I don’t know how much time passes before I find myself in my car. My hands grip the steering wheel tightly like it’s the only thing keeping me from drowning. The leather creaks under my fingers.
My knuckles are red and raw from the cold. The silence inside the car is deafening, pressing down on me until I feel like I might suffocate.
And then it all erupts.
“FUCK!”
I started slamming my fists against the wheel over and over again, the dull thuds echoing in the confined space. I am screaming — loud, guttural, filled with all the anger and regret I’ve been carrying for months now.
How could I let it get to this? How could I let myself lose her?
The scream tears from my throat as I slam my fists against the wheel again. Again. And again. Pain shoots up my arms but I welcome it — anything to drown out the image of another man’s arm around her waist, his lips on her temple.
The tears come next, hot and relentless. They blur my vision as I clutch the wheel, my body trembling with the weight of it all. I hate myself for what I’ve done — for the betrayal, for the lies, for the way I let Abigail slip through my fingers.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out of the empty car. “God, Abigail, I’m so fucking sorry.”
The breakdown comes in waves. Rage at Hannah’s manipulation. Disgust at my own stupidity. Raw, bleeding grief for everything I threw away.
The storm inside me eventually quiets, leaving only the hollow ache of regret. I lean back in the seat, my head resting against the cold glass of the window. My breath fogs the glass, and for a moment, I close my eyes, trying to piece myself back together.
I think about the first time I met her. The way her laugh had lit up the room, the way her eyes sparkled when she talked about her dreams. She was everything I didn’t know I needed, and I promised myself I’d never let her go.
But I did.
And now, she’s with someone else. Someone who makes her laugh, who gives her the kind of peace I could never seem to provide.
A small part of me whispers that it’s over, that I should let her go and move on. But the thought is unbearable.
I love her.
That hasn’t changed, and it never will.
A tap on my window makes me jerk upright. Hospital security, concerned face peering through the glass.
“Sir? Are you alright?”
No. I’ll never be alright again.
But as I wiped my eyes and nodded to the guard, something crystallized in my chest. A certainty sharp as broken glass: this isn’t over.
By the time I pulled out of the hospital parking lot, the snow had started to let up, the city bathed in an eerie, quiet glow. As I drive through the empty streets, my mind races with possibilities, with plans.
It’s not too late. It can’t be.
Abigail is the love of my life, and I refuse to believe that she’s forgotten what we had. There’s still a chance — there has to be.
I need to show her that I’ve changed, that I’m not the same man who broke her heart.
I think about the letter she sent me, the truth it contained. At first, I was too stunned to process it, too consumed by the chaos in my own life to understand what it meant. But now, it’s clear.
Hannah lied to me. She used me, manipulated me into giving up the one thing that mattered most. And I let her.
But I will earn Abigail’s forgiveness. I will fight for her, for us, for the life we were meant to have.
Because love like ours doesn’t just disappear. It can’t.
And I refuse to let it end here.
