William Hawthorne had built his life from scratch since they called it quits

He had always been a smart guy, but not smart in the quiet, nerdy type

The type who never studied and got an A+, that infuriating kid of smart

As said, he had always been smart, always, but when it’d come to his ex

He had never felt love like he had with her, from thirteen to seventeen they were together

But eventually, life pushed them away, making them take different paths

What he never knew was that he’d gotten her pregnant

She never told him

He would’ve stayed

He would’ve stayed damn it

It wasn’t until seventeen other years later, she got sick, and one day, William received a call, after having married his current wife, Helena, and having a son called Alex

His ex, on the bed of death, needed someone to take care of that lonely seventeen year old girl

William stood in the kitchen with the phone pressed to his ear, the smell of burnt coffee hanging in the air, his wife’s laughter drifting faintly from the living room where Alex was arguing with the TV over a game he was losing. Life—his life—hummed along, oblivious to the way it had just cracked open.

“A girl?” he’d repeated, stupidly.

“Yes,” the nurse said gently, the kind of voice people used when they were already mourning. “Seventeen. She doesn’t have anyone else.”

The math hit him like a punch to the chest. Seventeen years. Seventeen other years. The same number of years that had passed since he’d last seen her—since they’d said goodbye with shaking hands and promises they were too young to keep.

His knees buckled, and he sank into a chair.

She’d been pregnant.

She’d carried his child alone.

And now she was dying.

⸻

The hospital room smelled like antiseptic and fading hope. She looked smaller than he remembered, fragile in a way that felt wrong for someone who had once laughed too loud and loved too hard. Her eyes, though—those were the same. Soft. Apologetic. Terrified.

“I didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” she whispered.

William swallowed hard. “You didn’t mean for me to find out at all.”

She smiled weakly. “I knew you’d stay. And you deserved more than a life tied down at seventeen.”

“That wasn’t your decision,” he said, voice breaking despite his best efforts. “I would’ve stayed. I wanted to.”

Tears slid down her temples, disappearing into the pillow. “I know. That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”

He didn’t know how long he sat there, holding her hand, feeling seventeen years of absence screaming between their fingers. When she finally slept, the nurse quietly asked him to step outside.

That’s when he saw her.

Curled into a chair in the hallway, knees pulled to her chest, dark hair falling like a curtain around her face. She looked up when he moved, eyes sharp, guarded—too old for her age, too familiar for his comfort.

She had his eyes.

His mouth.

His stubborn, defiant set to the jaw

And when she died? When his daughter moved in with them?

She didn’t speak, not a single word, not to him, not to Helena, not to Alex, who was five and constantly tugging at {{user}}’s pant leg