The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 549

"Mom, is your illness... better now? Does your head still hurt?"

He stared at her forehead—the exact spot where the tumor had once grown, the spot his father had personally cured—looking at her as if she were a fragile treasure that needed fierce protection.

Sloane looked at him in sheer shock.

She had never told him any of this. She had never breathed a word of it in front of him. Garrison must have told the boy everything.

She grasped his small fingers, the corners of her mouth curving up. A tear slipped down and caught in her smile, a surreal sweetness cutting through the saltiness.

"I'm all better, it doesn't hurt anymore. Your dad's Vitas-1 cured me. You don't have to worry about Mom."

She reached out and gently smoothed a stray tuft of hair sticking up on his forehead, asking softly,

"What about you, Archie? Have you been doing okay these past few years?"

Archie nodded. "I'm doing great. Dad took really good care of me." He paused, then added, "And Quinn... she looked after me a lot. Even though she sometimes really wanted to act like my mom, I always just treated her as an aunt."

Quinn. Quinn Foster.

The name fell into the air like a feather landing on a still lake, rippling silently outward.

"Archie, I'm so sorry to hear about Quinn's passing."

Sloane kept her voice incredibly soft, as if she were brushing against an old wound that hadn't fully healed.

Archie stayed quiet for a moment.

He looked down at his small hands resting in his lap. When he looked up again, his eyes held a clarity and peace that sent a tremor through Sloane's heart.