And in that moment—
Elias Thorne, the man who had never bent for anyone—
Dropped to his knees beside the hospital bed.
Not from weakness.
From the weight of what he had lost.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice breaking completely now. “I was wrong. I was—God, Ava, I didn’t even give you a chance—”
She watched him.
Tears filled his eyes.
Real ones.
Not controlled.
Not hidden.
“I thought you betrayed me,” he continued. “But I was the one who walked away.”
Silence.
Then Ava spoke.
Quiet.
Steady.
“You didn’t walk away,” she said.
“You pushed us out.”
That word—
Us—
Destroyed him.
Because it meant she had never just been one person walking out that door.
She had been two.
And he had let them both go.
