He'd gone beyond his player ways for her.
She'd grown beyond her traumatic past for him.
Together, their love was beyond.
Until one fatal accident.
__________
When she loses the love of her life in a car crash, Althea has nothing left in California...
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*ALTHEA'S POV*
October 16, 2023.
"Aw, what are these sad faces?" Carol entered the staff room like a breeze, swift and fresh, contrasting our gloomy moods. Or maybe, a strong gust of wind would have been more appropriate. "Are you forming a new club: my lover is disabled and stubborn?"
"Ex. Asher is my ex-boyfriend," I corrected, the word still foreign on my tongue, although the nurse was too focused on the plate of cookies in the center of the small table to notice.
It was almost as if she hadn't heard me when she grabbed one and after a bite, asked,
"So what happened?"
"I've already talked enough. It's your turn!" Caleb, Sarah's boyfriend, raised both his hands.
I'd got time to learn his name in the past 30 minutes, and also how much he loved his girlfriend, as everything he'd told me revolved around her: their past year together, their current situation, and all the projects he'd already changed to adapt to her disability.
But now, it was my turn, and my lips were suddenly dry as I took another sip of my cold latte, swallowing with it all the words stuck in the lump of my throat.
I couldn't talk about Asher and I's past, and until five days ago, I hadn't imagined he had a present or future. Besides, was there still an 'our' when we weren't together anymore?
"Asher and I had a fight. He found out my Internet searches about hemiplegia and... didn't take it well..."
It was a mild way to put it, while with Asher, nothing was mild, and I shouldn't have been so taken aback by his reaction.
Yet I'd forgotten what it was like to fight.
"Oh, that boy is so proud! I'll give him a piece of my mind if he said mean things to the angel you are." Carol's voice raised slightly like a foretaste of the scolding she would give him. Well, once she would have finished her cookie, and seeing the two bites remaining, my stomach turned.
With guilt or a protective instinct? I wasn't sure, but it quickly pushed the words out.
"No, no, he didn't talk much, and I have my wrongs in this too... I didn't only look at medical explanations and PT tutorials about hemiplegia, I also searched for gift ideas... for disabled people." I winced myself at the sound of it, closing my eyes to not see their judging looks.
