Chapter 27
Healing hadn’t erased those memories.
It had simply taught me how to live beside them.
“I’m becoming happy,” I answered.
Vincent nodded slowly.
“I can see that.”
I smiled faintly.
Then he said, “You know, when I asked for the divorce, I thought you would fight me.”
I looked at him.
“I know.”
“I thought you’d ask me to stay.”
“I know.”
His eyes shone.
“When you signed, I thought you didn’t love me anymore.”
I took a step closer.
“Vincent, I loved you so much that leaving nearly broke me.”
His face changed.
“But staying had been breaking me for years.”
He closed his eyes.
I let the silence hold those words.
Then he asked the question I had sensed coming from the moment I entered the house.
“Is there really no chance for us?”
I looked at him.
He was still handsome.
Still successful.
Still the man who had once made me believe I was the center of his world.
And for the first time, I could see him without feeling the need to become smaller.
“I don’t know what life will bring,” I said.
“But I’m not coming back to this marriage.”
A tear slipped down his cheek.
I had never imagined seeing Vincent Hale cry over me.
Ten years earlier, it would have felt like proof of everything I wanted.
Now it only made me sad.
“I understand,” he whispered.
I nodded.
“I hope you find a way to be happy, Vincent.”
He looked at me.
“And I hope you learn to be present in the life you have, instead of spending it reaching for the one you imagine you should have had.”
He swallowed.
“You sound like the woman I married.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
Then I smiled gently.
“I sound like the woman I became after I stopped waiting for you.”
He stepped aside.
I walked down the stairs.
This time, I didn’t feel the need to look back.
The following spring, I received another important approval in my return to clinical practice.
It wasn’t the end of the road.
There were still responsibilities to fulfill and professional standards to maintain.
But after months of preparation, supervised work, and assessments, I was moving steadily toward the career I had once believed was gone forever.
On my first day back in a more active clinical role, I arrived at St.
Catherine’s before sunrise.
The hospital was already awake.