How long would I keep dragging him down like this? How long would I stay selfish, chaining him to me?
Would he be better off with Evie? Or somebody else?
I looked at his face, tired from a full day of work, still carrying the weight of caring for our family and for me. Not once did he complain. Not once did that soft smile leave his face.
At my next session, I would ask my therapist again how to start standing on my own, healing on my own, without leaning too much on him.
Chapter Twenty
Cameron
Sloane had gone back to work.
She said she still wasn’t ready, and maybe she wasn’t, but she went anyway. She pushed through the hesitation, ignored the voice in her head telling her she couldn’t do it. That took guts. I was so proud of her for that.
I knew how much it cost her to get out of bed some days, let alone walk into a place filled with people, with expectations. And even if she didn’t feel strong, that didn’t change the fact that she was.
She didn’t need to be perfect. She just needed to keep going. And she was.
There was something else happening lately, too. I could feel it, even if she never said it out loud. She was learning how not to hold on to me so tightly.
It showed in the small but meaningful things.
She didn’t panic anymore, not even before she decided to go back to work. She didn’t cling to me when I dropped her off at Mom’s before leaving for work in the morning. At night, she still reached for my hand before falling asleep, but her grip wasn’t as tight. She let go after a moment, like she was slowly teaching herself how to breathe without me.
I knew this was the right thing. I had talked about it with my therapist, that the best thing I could do was let her move at her own pace, in whatever way felt safest for her.
Sloane was starting to smile at me now, and every time she did, it felt like I’d accomplished something huge, like I’d earned backa small piece of her trust. Honestly, that was more than I could ask for.
I won’t lie—I was afraid she might leave me. I’d hurt her deeply, and there was no undoing that. All I could do now was accept it, be there for her, and let her find her own way forward. Let her shine on her own.
Sloane was so busy today that I barely saw her. On her first few days back, I kept looking for her between surgeries, worried something might go wrong. But every time I checked, she was fine. More than fine, actually. She kept her head down and stayed focused. Being busy seemed to help. It gave her something to do with her hands, something to quiet her mind.
She still looked tired, but she was holding herself up, even if it took effort. I didn’t want to interrupt or hover. She was finding her rhythm again, and maybe that was what she needed—just enough space to feel capable, to find her way forward on her own.
I watched her from a distance, her soft laughter rising at something a nurse said. Seeing her smile made me smile too. I was genuinely happy for her. She was trying so hard to find her own happiness, and she deserved every bit of it.
“For God’s sake, stop staring at her,” Dean’s voice came from the right as he suddenly appeared. Then I noticed Ben closing in from the left. “It boggles me she didn’t just march over and tell you to stop looking.”
“Let him,” Ben said. “She’s gorgeous, and he should feel the pain of losing someone like her.” Then he turned to me fully. “How’s everything with you?”
“I’m fine,” I answered.
He scrunched his forehead. “How’s the therapy going?”
“Going well,” I replied.
“You sound exactly like Sloane used to,” he said, frowning.
“But I really am fine,” I said defensively. “The therapy has been good.”
“When I asked her the same question, she told me a lot more than you,” Ben said. “It’s like your personalities swapped or something. It’s weird.”
That made me turn to him. “What did she say?”
Ben looked surprised. “Did you ever ask her yourself?”
“Yes, of course. I followed all the advice my therapist gave me to the letter. She opened up more, especially about how she feels after counseling. I’m just surprised she’s willing to talk to someone else now.”
