“I didn’t always,” I admit. “But I learned.”
Frank smiles faintly. “That’s the difference between you and him.”
I shift in my chair. “He’ll come around.”
Frank chuckles softly. “Maybe. Or maybe he’ll fight it like hell at first.”
“That sounds about right,” I murmur.
Frank’s gaze softens. “He needs someone who won’t try to fix him. Just someone who understands why he built the walls in the first place.”
I stand slowly, smoothing the blanket over his legs the way Diane did earlier. “I don’t need him to be fixed.”
Frank’s smile deepens, satisfaction there now. “Good.”
As I head for the door, his voice stops me.
“Melissa?”
I turn back.
“Whatever made him like this,” Frank says gently, “it wasn’t small.”
I nod. “I know.”
“And whatever you decide to do with that knowledge,” he adds, “don’t forget that loving someone like him takes patience. But it’s worth it.”
I meet his eyes. “I’m not afraid of patience.”
He grins. “I figured.”
Later, as I walk down the hallway, I catch sight of Colton standing near the nurses’ station, staring at nothing. His posture is rigid. His expression is blank.
A man holding himself together by sheer force of will.
For the first time, I don’t feel confused by his distance. I feel clarity.
There is a deeply wounded man behind the mask he shows the world. Someone who learned early that love and loss were inseparable and decided the safest way to survive was to never let himself fully need anyone again.
Frank didn’t create this fracture. He touched it.
And as I walk toward Colton, my steps steady, my heart strangely calm, I realize something important.
I don’t need to know everything yet. I don’t need answers.
What I need is to stay present. To love him the way Frank taught me how. Without rushing. Without fear. Without trying to outrun the ending.
Whatever it is.
Because some stories are worth staying for, even when you know they will hurt. And this one already matters to me far more than I’m ready to admit.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Colton
Frank died at 6:12 a.m.
Not during a dramatic code. Not in a rush of alarms or shouted orders. He went quietly, his body finally doing what it’s been trying to do for weeks now … rest.
