After Rejection Divorced Luna Becomes A Famous Doctor (Hailey and Dominic) novel Chapter 207

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VALERIE

My heart broke the moment I walked into the hospital room, seeing the love of my life hooked up to machines, tubes snaking around his body like lifelines and shackles all at once.

Giovanni looked so small in that bed, so fragile compared to the strong, stubborn man who never backed down from anything life threw at him. His chest rose and fell with the help of the ventilator, each mechanical breath sounding too loud in the quiet room, as if reminding me that without it, he

wouldn’t be breathing at all.

His face was pale, bruised, a deep purple shadow blooming beneath one eye, and there was dried blood in his hair that they hadn’t been able to fully wash away yet. I stood frozen in the doorway, my body refusing to move, my mind screaming that if I stepped any closer, this would become real. That this wasn’t a nightmare I could wake up from.

I walked to his bedside on shaking legs, my fingers trembling as I reached for his hand. It was warm, thank the Goddess it was warm, but limp in my grasp, unresponsive. I laced my fingers through his, pressing my forehead against his knuckles as the dam inside me finally broke.

Tears streamed down my face silently at first, then in shuddering sobs I couldn’t control no matter how hard I tried. I whispered his name over and over again, like a prayer, like if I said it enough times, he would hear me and come back to me. I told him he wasn’t allowed to leave me, that he promised we would grow old together, that our baby needed him, that I needed him. I told him I forgave him for every argument, every stupid fight, every moment we wasted being angry at each other instead of loving one another harder.

The machines continued their relentless rhythm, indifferent to my pain, indifferent to the way my

world was collapsing around me. I hated them for it. I hated the sterile white walls, the dim lights, the way the hospital smelled like loss and fear.

I brushed my thumb over his knuckles, committing the feel of his skin to memory, terrified of a future where this might be all I had left.

I leaned closer, my lips near his ear, and told him about the pool, about Hailey and Dominic, about how scared everyone was, hoping that somehow my voice would anchor him here, that it would give him something to fight for if he could hear me at all.

The doctor came in quietly, his presence heavy even before he spoke. He explained things I barely

understood, brain swelling, internal trauma, risks that made my chest feel tight and my vision blur.

I nodded like I was listening, like I was capable of processing any of it, but all I could focus on was

Giovanni’s stillness. When the doctor told me I could stay a little longer but not too long, I felt

irrational anger flare inside me. As if time was something I could afford to lose. As if every second

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away from him didn’t feel like a betrayal.

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When I finally stepped out of the room, my legs gave out, and I had to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing.

The hallway felt too bright, too loud, too alive compared to the room I had just left. Hailey was there in an instant, her arms around me, holding me together when I couldn’t do it myself.

I buried my face in her shoulder and cried the kind of cries that leaves you hollow, that scrapes you raw from the inside out. Dominic stood nearby, silent, his face carved from stone, but I could see the guilt in his eyes, the helplessness. We were all broken in different ways, bound together by fear

and love and the awful uncertainty of what tomorrow might bring.

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