Shattered Illusions: Love, Lies, and Redemption

Her laugh in the car that day, light and breezy, has been a melody in his heart these past few days, making him feel uplifted, filled with hopeful ambition.

He had mapped out the time, plotting how to woo her, to start fresh, to love like teenagers falling for the first time.

He even planned on being there for her after the birth, to support her through the postpartum period, to take care of her and the baby...

But he hadn't anticipated it all crumbling down so suddenly, turning into nothing but wishful thinking.

What he least expected was to hear from her own lips that she was willing to give him another chance. Yet, that chance slipped through his fingers in the most brutal way imaginable, piercing his heart with profound pain.

"Liz, I..."

He wanted to say, give me another chance, we're still so young, we can have more children.

But such words choked in his throat, unsaid.

He knew how tender her heart was towards him.

Time and again, she approached him, bleeding, crying.

It was his fault, again. How could he ask for yet another chance?

against the burning pain, while Lizetta opened hers at that

silhouette by the bed and

I don't deserve

silently down

away,

the paperwork and then...

constricted as

it have to be this way? Is

twitched slightly.

was no hope left for

her, his expression

eyes. Moments later, footsteps sounded as

the hospital room door behind him, he heard

deep in the blankets,

doorknob was almost

saw two figures rushing towards him from the other end of the hallway, Yolanda and Cassius. Cassius had taken Yolanda to Windale for an audition for a lead role in a period drama at a director's

had raced back, driving like a bat out of hell, with Cassius barely keeping it together, vomiting several times by the roadside from the rough ride. Yolanda stormed straight at Remington, her face a

"Stand down."