Daddy Alpha I’m In Heat (Lily and Connor) novel Chapter 75

~Connor~

A Year Later.

The truth still comes back to me in waves that steal my breath when I least expect it.

If someone had told me that my Lily would lose her mind, I would have laughed at them. I would have called them heartless. I would have said they did not know her, because Lily was not weak. She was emotional, yes, but she was also resilient in a way that made people underestimate how much she carried. She felt everything deeply, but she always found a way to keep going. She always found a way to survive.

I believed that made her unbreakable.

I was wrong.

When I look back now, I can see the cracks I refused to acknowledge. I can see how tired she was long before everything collapsed. I can see how the weight of everything pressed down on her until there was no room left for her to breathe. I tell myself it was too much for her, because admitting that it was not just fate but also my fault hurts more than I know how to explain.

I should not have touched her.

That thought follows me everywhere now. I should not have crossed that line. I should not have pulled her into my mess when her life was already heavy with grief and confusion and fear. I told myself she wanted it. I told myself she was an adult. I told myself I was giving her something she needed.

What I was really doing was adding more chaos to a heart that was already drowning.

The drama was too much for her.

I see that now with painful clarity. There were too many emotions crashing into her all at once. There was loss, and betrayal, and guilt, and love tangled with shame in ways that confused her sense of safety. There was no space for her to process any of it before the next blow landed. I watched her try to hold it all together, and instead of stepping back, I became another storm she had to survive.

I loved her, but love does not excuse what I did.

There were moments when she would look at me like she was searching for something solid to hold onto, and I mistook that for desire instead of desperation. I see it now in hindsight, and it makes my chest ache in a way that never fully goes away. She needed stability. She needed protection. She needed someone to tell her that she did not have to carry everything alone.

Instead, I complicated her world even more.

When he called me a year ago, I was already breaking everything in my house because I could not keep her.

I remember the sound of glass shattering against the wall. I remember my hands bleeding and not caring. I remember pacing like a trapped animal, because the silence without Lily felt unbearable. I had lost her long before that call, but that day was when it finally became real.

He told me that my Lily had gone insane.

I told him he was wrong. I told him Lily was strong. I told him she was just hurting and needed time. I told him people did not simply lose their minds like that.

He did not argue with me. He just went quiet, and that silence told me everything I did not want to hear.

When I finally saw her, something inside me shattered beyond repair.

She was sitting there, smaller somehow, like the world had pressed down on her and never let up. Her eyes looked familiar, but they did not recognize me the way they used to. They passed over my face like I was a stranger, like I was just another shape in the room.

I broke.

I broke down in front of her without any dignity left. I cried like I had never cried before, because the Lily I loved was standing right in front of me, and yet she was gone. Her body was there. Her voice was there. But the part of her that used to meet me halfway was missing.

I tried to talk to her. I tried to say her name the way I always had. I tried to apologize without knowing where to start. My words felt useless the moment they left my mouth.

She looked at me with an expression I will never forget. It was not anger. It was not love. It was not even pain. It was distance. It was the look of someone who had retreated so far inside themselves that the outside world no longer mattered.

That was when I understood that this was not something I could fix.

I realized that whatever had broken her had done so quietly and completely, and that my presence did not bring comfort. It brought confusion.

I wanted to grab her and tell her that I was sorry. I wanted to tell her that I should not have crossed that line, that I should have protected her instead of pulling her into my chaos. I wanted to tell her that I would take it all back if I could.

But none of that mattered anymore.

The damage had already been done.

I took her back home for treatment because there was nothing else left for me to do.

I remember the drive like a blur of road and regret. Lily sat beside me, quiet in a way that scared me more than her screaming ever could have. She looked out the window the entire time, her hands folded in her lap, her body present while her mind seemed somewhere far away. I kept glancing at her like if I looked long enough, she would come back to me. She never did.

When we arrived at her family house. They wanted to know what happened to her. They wanted to know what broke her. They wanted answers that I did not have the courage to give.

They asked me what happened.

I stood there with my hands at my sides, my chest tight, my throat burning, and I realized I did not know how to explain the truth without destroying myself in the process.

So I said nothing.

I looked at Lily, then at her relatives, and then I quietly walked away.

I told myself I was giving them space.

It has been a year since that day.

A year of pretending I deserve to keep breathing when she had to fight so hard just to stay present. A year of waking up with her name in my mouth and guilt in my chest. A year of replaying every choice I made and wondering which one finally pushed her over the edge.

I did not check on her the way I should have. I convinced myself that distance was mercy. I convinced myself that my absence was safer for her than my presence. I lived with the silence because I believed I had earned it.

Then the call came.

I was sitting alone when my phone rang, and I almost did not answer it. When I heard the doctor’s voice, my hands started shaking so badly that I had to sit down.

He told me she was getting better.

Then he said the one thing I never expected to hear.

He said she was asking for me.

I’m Sorry

I could not speak for a long moment after that. My chest felt too tight, like my heart was trying to break out of my ribs all over again. I asked him to repeat it because I was sure I had misunderstood.

He repeated it calmly.

She was asking for me. So I went to see her.

~~

I went to see her the next morning.

I barely remember the drive. My hands were tight on the steering wheel the entire time, and my chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself with every mile. I kept rehearsing what I would say, but every version sounded wrong. I did not know who she would be when I walked into that room, and that terrified me more than anything else.

When I finally stepped inside. The doctor spoke softly, but I barely heard him. My eyes were already searching, already desperate.

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