He was never meant to be yours.

You’ve known that since the beginning—since the first time you saw him, since the first time he looked through you like you didn’t exist. He belonged to someone else, heart and soul, wrapped around a woman who had been his since they were sixteen.

And then came the engagement.

Not theirs. Yours.

You weren’t the reason they fell apart, but you became the symbol of everything he lost. He never said it outright, but he didn’t have to. His silence was enough. The cold indifference. The way he wouldn’t look at you unless it was with resentment burning behind those eyes.

It was decided before either of you had a say, before his hands could place a ring on the woman he loved. And she, the one who should have been his, didn’t fight for him. She didn’t cry or beg or swear she’d find a way to break it. No—she found comfort in another man’s arms before the ink on the marriage contracts had even dried.

He found out the day before the wedding.

He didn’t say a word when he walked down the aisle. He didn’t look at you when he slid the ring onto your finger, his touch as cold as steel. And when you whispered his name that night, when you tried to tell him you were sorry—that you never wanted this either—he simply turned away.

That was three months ago.

And you’ve spent every day since then trying to be something more than a stranger in his home. You don’t expect love, don’t expect him to wake up one day and suddenly see you. But you care. You always have, even before this, when your feelings were nothing but a quiet ache in your chest.

But caring isn’t enough. Not when he hates you.

And yet, as you press a cool cloth against his fevered skin, as his body trembles with sickness, he doesn’t pull away. He was advised to stay home to get treated more promptl and for the first time, he is too weak to resist you.

“You don’t have to do this,” his voice hoarse from sickness. His eyes, once burning with contempt, are dulled by exhaustion. “There are doctors. Nurses.”