Her New Life, His Eternal Pain Chapter 16

Her New Life, His Eternal Pain Chapter 16 I’ll Wait

Fiona’s lunch was a pre-op meal Samuel made himself. Light. Bland. Tasteless. Starting tonight, she’d have to fast for ten hours.

After eating, she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Samuel climbed in next to her and pressed close, his chest warm against her back.

His warmth seeped into her. She squeezed her thighs together, trying not to react, but her heart was already racing.

“You’re getting way too comfortable in my bed,” she grumbled.

“What’s wrong with it? You’re my girlfriend!” He said it like he was testing the word, tasting it for the first time. When she didn’t argue, his face went red all the way to his ears.

Ever since he noticed her getting more affectionate-the way she’d lean into him, the way she’d touch his arm without thinking-he’d been getting bolder. Testing boundaries.

“Samuel.” She turned to face him, her nose almost touching his.

He stared at her lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He swallowed hard.

He wanted to kiss her so bad. She could see it in the way his eyes darkened, the way his breath hitched. But he didn’t move. Just lay there, nervous, his eyes darting away and then back.

Fiona reached up and touched his cheek. Her fingers were cool against his warm skin. “When I wake up from surgery, I’ll tell you a secret.”

“Okay.”

His voice was tight. He nodded once.

He could wait. He’d waited years. One more night was nothing.

Liam’s secretary told him the surgery was today.

Liam stood at the far end of the hallway, hidden in the shadows, watching Samuel hold Fiona’s hand and whisper in her ear. The image was quiet. Intimate. A wall Liam would never climb, no matter how hard he tried.

1

Last night, he’d had the dream again.

Fiona on the operating table. Blood pouring from her mouth, her nose, her ears-dark, thick, endless. The heart monitor screaming a flat, endless note.

He’d tried to run to her, but his feet were stuck to the floor, glued down like they’d been nailed.

He’d woken up in a cold sweat, his pajamas soaked. Rain was pounding against his window, loud as gunfire.

He’d walked outside barefoot. Let the rain hammer him. Let it hurt. He wanted it to hurt. He deserved

every drop.

Liam watched Samuel from a distance. That man could be with her. Hold her hand. Make her laugh. Raise her daughter.

Everything Liam had dreamed of, back when he was young and stupid and thought he had forever.

Now he didn’t even dare dream.

In his nightmares, Fiona looked at him with those dead, empty eyes and said:

“Liam, if you come any closer, I won’t do the surgery.”

“Do you want me to die again? I’ll do it right in front of you. You can watch this time.”

He couldn’t tell which was worse-the Fiona in his dreams or the empty, hollow reality he woke up to every morning.

Samuel stepped into the stairwell to get some air. Liam was there, leaning against the wall, lighting a cigarette. The flame flickered in the dim light.

He offered one to Samuel.

“I don’t smoke.”

Samuel looked at him with a complicated expression-hatred, pity, exhaustion-and shook his head.

Liam didn’t seem angry. Just tired. Broken. Like someone had hollowed him out with a spoon.

He leaned against the door, smoke curling around his face, obscuring his eyes. “You nervous?”

“Fiona promised me,” Samuel said. “She’ll be fine.”

Of course I’m nervous, he thought, his hands clenching at his sides. But I can’t show it.

If he showed fear, who would hold the family together? Who would comfort Fiona? Who would tell Lily that everything was going to be okay?

Not long ago, he and Liam had been bitter enemies. Now they were just two men waiting, two men who loved the same woman, standing in a cold stairwell with nothing left to say.

The surgery light was still red.

“Are you ever gonna get married?” Samuel asked. The question came out sharper than he intended.

Liam lit a second cigarette from the first. His expression was dark behind the smoke, unreadable.

“Nah.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it-just a dry, hollow sound. “A guy like me doesn’t deserve to get married. Better if I don’t ruin anyone else’s life.”

“At least you know that.” Samuel’s voice was cold. He looked Liam up and down. “You look like sh*t.”

“I’m not dead yet.”

Liam’s condition was bad. Samuel could see it-the way his hands trembled, the way his skin had a gray pallor, the way his eyes had dark circles so deep they looked bruised. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Hallucinations made him hurt himself sometimes.

“Then live,” Samuel said suddenly.

Liam looked up, surprised.

“You were with Fiona for so long. I’m scared that if you die, she’ll never forget you.”

“But I’m her boyfriend now. I’ve been with her for years. I waited. And you-you broke her. Drove her to the edge. Almost killed her. If, after all that, she still has a place in her heart for you? I couldn’t stand it.”

“Liam, if you really feel guilty, then stay alive. Live as long as you can. Live until she doesn’t care about you anymore. Until I’m the only one she thinks about.”

“Then you can die.”

The stairwell was cold and windy. Samuel’s voice echoed off the concrete walls. He spoke slowly, each word deliberate.

Liam listened in silence. The cigarette burned down to his fingers. He didn’t flinch.

He snapped back to reality, feeling hollowed out. He nodded like a puppet with cut strings.

“Okay,” he said. Just one word. Barely a whisper.

Samuel was right. Selene’s death wasn’t Fiona’s fault. But Liam had tortured her for it anyway. For a whole year. Twelve months of pushing, punishing, destroying.

Because of him, she’d almost died. More than once.

Liam’s throat was too dry to speak. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say more-an apology, a thank-you, a goodbye-but nothing came out.

Samuel had already walked away. He sat down on a bench and put his head in his hands.

Three hours into the surgery, Samuel was a wreck.

He sat with his forehead pressed against his fists, eyes closed, lips moving in a silent prayer he hadn’t spoken in twenty years.

He used to be a doctor. A firm atheist. He’d rolled his eyes at families who prayed in waiting rooms.

But now that the person he loved was in that room, fighting for her life on an operating table, he

understood.

“Family of the patient?” A nurse came out, clipboards in hand.

Samuel shot to his feet so fast the bench scraped backward.

“Sign this. Critical condition notice.”

The words hit him like a truck.

He’d given these notices to families a hundred times. A thousand times. He’d always been professional detached, sympathetic but distant.

But now his hands shook so bad he could barely hold the paper. The words blurred in front of his eyes

He knew it didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong. It was a formality. A precaution.

But still.

The nurse was in a hurry. She tapped her foot.

Samuel gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and signed. His signature came out jagged, almost illegible.

She took the paper and ran back inside.

He couldn’t sit anymore. He paced. He cried. He couldn’t stop. His tears dripped onto the gray floor.