The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 582

"What did you just say?" Sloane thought she had misheard him. Her frown deepened, her eyes searching his face for any hint that this was some kind of dark joke. "What does that have to do with my cancer?"

Garrison stared at her confused expression, feeling as though his chest were being crushed by a freight train.

"Because my parents never told you the truth," he rasped, his voice harsh, every syllable sounding like it was scraped from the deepest, rawest part of his lungs. "The water there... it was heavily contaminated with radioactive waste. The reservoir connects upstream to a nuclear runoff zone. The entire area had been strictly condemned and barricaded off years before."

"They didn't warn you. They told you to dive in and retrieve that pen..." His eyes welled with tears, his voice finally fracturing with a tremor he couldn't control. "...because your life never meant a damn thing to them."

"Sloane, you got cancer... because of that dive." Garrison choked on a sob, his whole body shaking violently now. "It was because of my mother. Because of me. I failed to protect you."

"I'm so sorry, Sloane..."

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..."

He gripped her hand tightly, his knuckles stark white as his shoulders heaved with violent tremors.

He bowed his head, apologizing over and over. Clear, scalding tears spilled from his amber eyes, dropping one by one onto the back of her hand.

They felt hot enough to burn her skin.

She had never seen him break down like this. He looked completely shattered from the inside out, choking on grief he couldn't swallow or spit out, leaving him with nothing but a ragged, barely audible string of apologies.

For a moment, Sloane couldn't process it.

She stared at the frozen frame on the computer monitor—her twenty-year-old self, wet hair plastered to her cheeks, smiling so brightly. So young, practically radiating a fierce, indestructible vitality.

She looked from that bright smile to Garrison, who was now weeping uncontrollably on his knees before her.

Then she lifted her gaze and surveyed the bedroom, identical to how it looked six years ago. The muted gray sheets. The beige nightstand lamp. The expired bottle of hand lotion still sitting squarely on the vanity.