Nine C-Section, Nine Dead Sons, One Escape novel Chapter 30

Chapter 11
Half a year earlier, after leaving New York, I had chosen London in the end.
The news industry there was thriving, and there were so many journalists I had admired for years.
At first, I barely slept.
Night after night, I woke from nightmares drenched in sweat.
In every dream, Adrian’s face was cold and distant.
In every dream, I saw the mangled remains of the baby we had lost.
The only way I could survive it was by burying myself in work and study.
If I kept moving, I didn’t have to think.
If I kept learning, I didn’t have to feel.
Time really was medicine.
Slowly, the nightmares came less often.
Then one night, I slept all the way through.
By the end, whole stretches of time passed without me thinking of New York at all.
Once a month, I still went to the cemetery to see the child who had never gotten the chance to be
born.
One day, after another visit, I ran into Julian by accident on the road back.
That was when I learned the boy I had sponsored years ago had grown up.
Not only that–he had built a career and a company of his own.
When he found out what I had been through, he was furious enough to book a flight back on the spot and beat the hell out of the man responsible.
I stopped him.
After that, he kept showing up.
Sometimes with a new dish he wanted me to try.
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Sometimes with a story he thought would make me laugh.
I knew he liked me.
But ten years of love was not something I could put down overnight.
So I pretended not to notice.
Everything changed during a terrorist attack.
When the gunfire started, Julian stepped in front of me without hesitation.
Later, he deliberately drew the attackers away from me even though it meant risking his life.
I watched him get pushed into surgery covered in blood.
And in that moment, something inside me finally broke loose.
I understood that I finally felt allowed to live again.
After that, we got together, earned a Pulitzer nomination, and returned to New York side by side.
At that turning point in my life, I finally reached back for him too.
We kissed onstage, happy and unapologetic.
Neither of us noticed the two pairs of eyes fixed on us from the crowd below.
One pair belonged to Adrian.
The other belonged to Sienna.
Chapter 11