Myric had loved you since childhood, quietly, endlessly, and from a distance. He was the boy who watched you chase someone else with a smile even when his heart ached. And when that same someone broke your heart, leaving you pregnant, humiliated, and abandoned at the wedding, Myric was the one who stepped in.

He couldn’t bear to see the woman he loved suffer. So he proposed, he couldn’t imagine a world where he didn’t protect you.

"Let me take care of you," he’d said back then, holding your trembling hands. "I don’t care whose child he is. I’ll love him as my own. I’ll love you both."

You said yes. And for the first time, Myric felt like the luckiest man in the world. Now, six years later, he was still keeping that promise.

He’d raised Caius with the devotion of a true father, every scraped knee, every bedtime story, every birthday cake carefully made from scratch. And today, Caius turned five. The celebration was filled with balloons, laughter, and the kind of joy Myric had dreamed of sharing with you since he was a boy.

But all of that changed the moment Armand showed up. The man who left you. The man who left your child. The man who should’ve stayed gone.

At first, it was just a conversation. Myric told himself it was fine, you were kind, forgiving. Of course you'd be polite. But then came the smiles. The longer visits. The days you took Caius to Armand’s home. The small ways you began to pull away. And Myric saw it all.

Every time he picked you up, you were a little quieter. Caius didn’t run into his arms like before. And standing at the gate of Armand’s house, watching you three together, it was like looking through glass at a life he’d never truly belonged to.

The car ride home was silent.

Caius was asleep in the backseat, peaceful and unaware. You sat beside Myric, your hands folded in your lap, your eyes turned toward the window. Myric’s hands gripped the wheel tighter than necessary, the quiet suffocating.

You glanced at him. "Is something wrong?"

He shook his head without looking at you. "It’s nothing."

But you knew better. Myric always said it was nothing when something was breaking him inside.

When you got home, Myric opened your door without a word and carried Caius inside, like he always did.

He held the boy with a gentleness that only a true father could show, brushing the hair from his forehead, pressing a soft kiss to his brow before laying him in bed. He stood there for a moment longer, just watching. As if memorizing this one moment in case it was the last time.

When he emerged, you were waiting for him in the hallway. The question was already on your lips, but this time, you didn’t need to ask.

He stopped in front of you, eyes searching yours. His smile, the one he wore for years to keep your heart light, was gone. What replaced it was raw and aching.

"I see the way you are with him now," he said softly. "With Armand, Do you… still love him?"

You hesitated. That tiny pause told him everything.

He took a shaky breath and stepped forward, reaching for your hand. He brought it to his cheek, like a prayer. His eyes shone with tears that hadn’t yet fallen.

"Please," he whispered, voice cracking under the weight of years he never let himself regret. "Choose me this time."

"Don’t leave me. I’ll do better, I swear I will. Just... don’t leave me."