He Comforted Their Child While I Recovered Alone Chapter 10

He Comforted Their Child While I Recovered Alone Chapter 10

A year later, I finished my final round of rehab.

My left leg would never move quite like it used to.

On rainy days, it still ached.

But I could walk long distances on my own now, without leaning on anyone.

The day the divorce was finalized, Grayson sent me an email.

He didn’t ask me to come home. He didn’t say he’d wait for me.

Just two short lines.

[Addie, I’m sorry.]

[I won’t bother you again.]

I read it for a long time. In the end, I didn’t reply.

That winter, I flew back briefly for a checkup.

It was snowing hard when I walked out of the hospital.

Grayson was standing across the street.

He’d probably just come to drop off paperwork for the recovery fund, never expecting to run into me.

Our eyes met, and this time he didn’t rush across the street to take charge like he used to.

He just stood there, quiet, watching me through the traffic.

When the light turned red, he finally crossed over.

“Does your leg still hurt?”

“Sometimes.”

“Are you doing okay, on your own?”

“Really good.”

He nodded, like there was more he wanted to say.

In the end, he just held out his umbrella.

“It’s coming down hard. The roads are slick.”

I didn’t take it.

Behind me, a friend had already come out with her own umbrella up, laughing, telling me to hurry.

Grayson watched me walk naturally over to stand beside someone else, and something sharp flickered

behind his eyes.

But he lowered his hand anyway.

“Addie.”

I turned back.

His voice came out thin in the wind and snow.

“If I’d never lied to you, would we still be together?”

I looked at this man I’d loved for years, and hated for just as many.

“Maybe.”

“But there’s no such thing as if, in real life.”

Grayson’s eyes went red, but he didn’t try to stop me again.

I turned and walked into the snow.

This time, he finally understood.

Real love isn’t shoving your own regret back into what’s left of someone’s life.

It’s staying put when they don’t want to turn around.

After that, Grayson never reached out again.

The gifts my parents sent came back to them, unopened, every time.

I never forgave them. I stopped hating them, too.

My bad leg still reminds me those five years really happened.

But the scar isn’t a chain anymore.

It’s just a mark left behind from a very long road I walked.

When spring came, I walked to the beach on my own for the first time, no cane.

The wind off the water was strong.

I stood there, steady.

And right then, I remembered what Mom had said the night I walked out of that private room.

She told me to leave and never come back.

They thought that was a punishment.

But for me?

That was the freedom I’d been five years late getting to.