Chapter 86 – Lucian guilt feeling
Lucian
It started with something simple a woman crossing the street.
She couldn't have been more than twenty-eight. Her belly was round and full beneath a soft beige coat, one hand resting protectively over it as she laughed with the man beside her. The way he hovered near her, the way his eyes softened every time she smiled it was the kind of quiet devotion you don't notice until you've lost your chance to give it.
I don't know why I stopped walking.
Maybe because for the first time in a long while, the world slowed enough to show me what I'd missed.
That should have been me walking beside Rina, her hand in mine, the sound of our laughter blending with the wind. I should have been there when her body carried our daughters, when she was scared and alone, when she needed someone to hold her through the storm I never even knew was raging.
The guilt hit me like a wave sudden, sharp, and cold.
