The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 530

Sloane's eyes locked onto the boy's face.

Everything around her dissolved into a blur—Garrison, the parents at the gate, the children running past. The entire world faded into senseless background noise.

Only that small face remained crystal clear, as if someone had taken a carving knife and etched every single detail directly onto her retinas.

His nose was straight and elegant, just like Garrison's. His lips were thin and defined, carrying that exact same faint, upward curve at the corners when pressed together.

But he possessed her eyes. They were ink-black, tilting slightly upward at the outer corners. And right now, from across the crowded street, those exact eyes were staring right back at her—holding a mix of polite curiosity and subtle confusion.

A name violently breached the surface of her mind, slamming into her consciousness without warning.

*Archie Foster.*

In the next second, it felt as though a bomb detonated inside her skull. Countless fragmented memories tore through her vision like shredded film strips.

A chubby baby's hand, its five tiny fingers gripping onto her index finger with incredible strength.

A tiny face looking up at her, two rice-sized baby teeth showing as a small mouth clumsily babbled a single word—*"Mommy."*

The image shattered, then aggressively pieced itself into something else.

A four- or five-year-old boy was being dragged away by a silver-haired middle-aged woman. The child turned his head, crying and screaming for his mother. She collapsed on the ground, dragging herself forward on her knees. Tears streamed down her face, her voice hoarse from screaming, but her arms were pinned back by two people. No matter how hard she reached, she couldn't touch him.

The older woman shot her a freezing glare, then pulled the crying child into a black luxury sedan. The door slammed shut, the taillights bleeding two streaks of violent red into the rainy night.

Shattered again. Rebuilt again.

This time, it was Garrison.

He looked younger, dressed in a sharp tuxedo. His left hand was holding the hand of a five- or six-year-old boy, while the boy's right hand was holding the hand of another woman.

The woman was wearing a pure white evening gown, her long curls shifting gracefully in the wind as she laughed. Behind them, the massive doors of a gala venue were open, cameras flashing endlessly in their direction.

His voice sounded warped, like he was speaking underwater, muffled and distant.

She couldn't see his face. She couldn't see the street. All she saw were the memories violently colliding, breaking, and resetting inside her mind like a broken projector, playing out a past she never even knew existed.

A past she had been entirely stripped of.

*

At that exact moment, across the street.

Garrison crouched in front of Archie, using his good hand to straighten the collar of his son's jacket.

A dead ginkgo leaf drifted onto the boy's shoulder, and Garrison casually brushed it away.

But Archie stood frozen. His face was tilted up, his gaze cutting straight past Garrison's shoulder to lock onto the opposite side of the street. His dark eyes held an expression Garrison had never seen on him before—he looked completely stunned, his mouth slightly open, as if trying to say a word he had suddenly forgotten how to pronounce.