I Stopped Waiting and Started Loving novel Chapter 122

He remembered the days right after Bonnie had dragged him back. His body had been a mess of deep, bone-exposing lacerations, nothing but a mass of bloody flesh.

That dilapidated dump they lived in didn't have the conditions for proper surgery. She actually made him bite down on a rolled-up towel while she sutured his wounds raw.

The excruciating agony of the needle pulling through his flesh made him pass out multiple times before she finally managed to apply some topical numbing cream.

But the summer heat caused the wounds to fester and inflame rapidly, leaving him writhing in pain, unable to sleep night after night.

Looking back, that period of his life was an agonizing nightmare. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, he found that he couldn't actually bring himself to hate her.

Parrish let out a self-deprecating chuckle and downed another shot of liquor.

"Parrish, stop drinking on an empty stomach. Eat something," Seraphina cooed, her eyes brimming with affection as she held a piece of BBQ ribs to his lips.

She had spent hours cooking these dishes specifically for tonight.

Parrish accepted the bite, but the meat was dry and overly greasy. It wasn't good.

Unbidden, an intense craving for Bonnie's cooking hit him. Her meals were always fresh, perfectly balanced, and exactly suited to his tastes.

But it had been an eternity since he last tasted anything she made.

A hollow emptiness opened up in Parrish's chest. He sighed and knocked back another glass.

...

Meanwhile, Bonnie stumbled her way back to Riverstone Heights, completely lost in her own despair.

Instead of heading upstairs, she slumped onto a wooden bench in the estate's central park.

She dropped her head, clutching the edge of the bench, her mind a chaotic storm.

She was desperately trying to figure out a way to take back her grandfather's formula.

But after running through every possible scenario, the crushing reality set in: she had absolutely nothing.

She had no concrete proof that the formula belonged to her family.

Seraphina, on the other hand, had a complete set of experimental data and Parrish standing right beside her as a 'witness.'

Even though Parrish knew damn well Seraphina had stolen it, he would never testify in Bonnie's favor.

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