He Lost Me to His Best Friend novel Chapter 58

Sensing something was wrong, Yardley quickly grabbed her shoulders in a panic.

"Sylvia, what's wrong? I've told you before, you had heart surgery when you were a kid. You can't let yourself get this worked up... Quick, take a deep breath!"

Sylvia took a sharp, desperate breath, her body going completely limp as she collapsed into his arms.

Yardley's heart skipped a beat. He knew this crossed a line, and his first instinct was to push her away. But seeing her face contorted in pain, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Sylvia wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, trembling violently.

"Yardley, I really don't want to leave you again. You have no idea what I went through those five years abroad."

"Now I realize that you're the only person in the world who truly cares about me. If it wasn't for you, I don't know how I would have survived my pregnancy and delivery."

Yardley felt a sharp pang of sympathy, unsure of what to say. He still remembered what she looked like when his aunt, Gwen Quinn, brought her back from the orphanage—so frail and pitiful.

Her background was tragic. Born with a heart defect, she had been abandoned on the street by her parents before the orphanage took her in. Gwen had gone to the orphanage for charity work, saw the little girl hovering between life and death, and, in a moment of compassion, adopted her and paid for her surgery.

But after Sylvia recovered, Gwen and her husband's relationship completely fell apart. They gave each other the silent treatment, fought constantly, and things even got physical. Seeing how much Sylvia was suffering, Yardley finally suggested to Corinne that they bring her to the Flynn family to raise her.

When Sylvia first arrived, she was tiny. Her face was barely the size of his palm.

He was the one who patiently fed her every meal, slowly nursing her back to health.

"But... even if I agree, Caleb can't handle it. He's so used to you rocking him to sleep. If he doesn't see you, he'll cry. Do you really want to make him cry?"

He was just an uncle, not a father. He had no idea how to make her understand that. Yardley looked incredibly exasperated.

"I took care of Caleb day and night during your postpartum recovery because I had no choice. That was Julian's responsibility. I can only help out for a short period. I can't be there 24/7 like I was before. Sylvia, Julian is his father."

His heavy, resolute words made Sylvia's entire body stiffen. She wasn't listening. She refused to accept a single word of it. "Julian never has time for Caleb! He's a terrible father. Yardley, I'm begging you. Don't abandon Caleb and me right now."

"Julian just needs one more year. Just help me for one more year, until Caleb's first birthday, please? By then, I should be used to being a mom. This is the hardest point of my life. If you don't help me, who else do I have? You know my mother is always flying all over the world for her charity work. She doesn't have the time to care about me. And my dad... I'm just his daughter in name only. He's never actually given a damn about me!"

As Sylvia spoke, she broke down into quiet, pathetic sobs once again.