Chapter Text
Was it real or a dream?
Can I trust what I see?
When I’m torn at the seams
How can I make believe?
The fabric of reality
Is strong enough to tether me
There’s weightlessness in fantasy
Life’s heavy, but it’s gravity
— Sophie Holohan
"Cognitive Dissonance"
The family gathered in the backyard on a warm spring evening, backdropped by the slow-fading sunlight painting the sky in tender shades of orange and pink. Colin’s lips twitched into a soft smile as he watched his children on a blanket near the garden, chattering and laughing in a world of their own creation.
His gaze shifted to Penelope, who was crouched beside the planter boxes, her fingers testing the soil’s moisture. The small garden, a patchwork of blackberries, gooseberries, figs, and olives, thrived under her care. It had been Agatha’s idea originally, inspired by one of Colin’s bedtime stories about the ancient Greeks and their devotion to Demeter, the Goddess of Agriculture.
Agatha’s enthusiasm, however, had waned after the original planting was done, leaving the upkeep to her parents. Not that Colin minded. He could see the quiet enjoyment Penelope took in tending to the garden, even if she pretended otherwise.
Kneeling beside her, Colin pressed a kiss to her shoulder, and she shivered beneath his lips, a faint blush colouring her cheeks. Strands of her flamed hair escaped her loosely tied chignon, framing her face in a way that made his heart ache. She was so very lovely.
He wanted to bottle this moment: just him, his wife, and the beautiful children they had created together. What more could he ask for?
Turning back to the kids, Colin watched as George, a few days shy of four, sat cross-legged beside Jane, who was animatedly explaining the story behind the doll in her hand to Thomas. Colin noted the subtle twitch of Thomas’s fingers; a clear sign he was fighting the urge to interrupt her. Colin couldn’t help the swell of pride at Thomas’s tender care of his baby sister, using the ‘gentlemanly tips’ that Colin had been trying to instil as his second oldest entered double digits.
Agatha soon returned from the house, carrying a clear plastic bin full of colourful blocks. She set the bin down in front of George and settled on the blanket beside him.
George’s small hands immediately reached for the blocks, his movements deliberate and focused. He picked up a blue block and held it out to Agatha, tilting his head slightly in a gesture that spoke louder than words. Agatha, her sharp mind always attuned to her brother’s needs, studied him for a moment before grinning.
"You want the green one instead?" she asked, her voice startlingly sure and mature. She grabbed the block he pointed to, just out of his reach. George nodded, his soft curls bouncing as he did. When Agatha handed him the green block, his face lit up with a smile so radiant it warmed Colin’s heart.
"He’s building a house," Thomas, sitting across from his younger brother, piped up, pointing to the neatly stacked blocks. "See? He’s got the door and the roof already."
George clapped his hands softly in a gesture that Colin recognised as thanks, his silent joy unmistakable.
Penelope, now standing beside Colin, leaned her head on his shoulder as they watched the exchange. "They always know what he needs," she murmured, her voice tinged with both admiration and unease. "It’s like they’re fluent in George-speak."
Colin nodded, but his chest felt tight. Watching his children’s effortless bond should have filled him with pride, but there was an undercurrent of worry he couldn’t shake. "It’s incredible," he said after a pause, "but…"
"But it’s not enough," Penelope finished softly, straightening. Wrapping her arms around herself, she turned her gaze to George, who was stacking blocks with quiet determination. "He’s so smart, Colin. You can see it in everything he does. But he’s so quiet, and I’m scared the longer this goes on, the harder it’ll be for him to catch up. The other kids were already chatting nonstop by this age. I just… I don’t know what else to try anymore."
Colin swallowed hard, guilt and helplessness swirling in his chest. He had always been the optimist, quick to reassure her that George was just a late bloomer, that he would speak when he was ready. But now, that confidence felt more like denial. "We’ll figure it out," he said, placing a reassuring hand on her back. "He’ll find his way. The doctor said to be patient, and the speech therapist mentioned he’s making progress every session."
Penelope looked at him, her baby blue eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "I know," she said softly, "but what if we’re missing something? What if there’s more we could be doing? What if our baby is suffering, and we don’t even know it or how to help him?"
Before Colin could answer, a peal of laughter broke through their worry. Agatha and Thomas were tickling George now, his shoulders shaking with silent giggles as he flailed in mock protest. The sight twisted Colin’s heart: his son’s joy was so palpable, yet so quiet.
"He’s happy," Colin said firmly, his voice both a reassurance and a plea. "That has to count for something."
Penelope nodded, but the crease of worry between her brows remained as they turned back to their children. The sun dipped lower on the horizon, casting long shadows over the yard, and Colin couldn’t shake the bittersweet ache in his chest. This moment felt like both a blessing and a glimpse into a future he knew they needed to be ready for.
The smell comes first.
Notes of dark wood, sharp and musky, mingle with the scent of rain-soaked pavement. It should be grounding and familiar, but instead, it twists into something unnatural, tainted with the acrid bite of antiseptic. It floods Colin’s senses, overwhelming him. The sterile smell clings to the back of his throat like something invasive, something wrong.
The air feels heavy, suffocating, as if it’s pressing down on him, filling his mouth with cotton and tumbleweeds. He tries to swallow, but his throat is dry. Every breath is labour.
And then there’s the breaking of sound.
It’s muffled like his ears are submerged in water. Beneath it, there’s a low hum—a vibrating buzz, faint but insistent, like the static of an old television. It presses into his skull, growing louder and louder until it becomes unbearable.
What’s happening?
His chest tightens. Voices surround him, fragmented and disjointed, bleeding into each other. They’re everywhere, and they’re too much. His mind explodes with colours—reds, purples, blues. They flash bright and angry, like fireworks in a distant sky. But they’re silent, soundless.
It’s wrong. All of it feels wrong.
He’s surrounded by bombs that go off indiscriminately.
A door slams open. The sound pierces through the chaos, sharp and deafening. Screams follow—panicked, desperate. Sobbing cuts through the air like a blade. Sirens wail, high-pitched and relentless, and somewhere in the cacophony is his own heartbeat.
It pounds in his chest, relentless and desperate: Penelope. Penelope. Penelope.
Her voice rises above the noise, broken and raw.
"I am so stupid to think you actually wanted me…I should've known better—I should've known you better."
The words are loud and quiet all at once, impossible and yet undeniable. Chaos rips through his mind like a storm, shattering everything in its wake.
Pain follows.
Blinding, searing pain.
It starts as a dull ache at the base of his skull, but it grows sharper, stabbing into his brain like a knife. His head feels like it’s being split open, his thoughts fracturing into fragments. Memories bleed into each other, disjointed and cruel.
"What do you expect? She’s… Penelope—unremarkable. It’s not like she’s anyone special."
These words are his.
And now he sees her. Penelope, her face pale, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"I don’t want to go anywhere with you!" she shouts, her voice trembling with fury.
He runs after her, desperate and reckless. He reaches for her, but she pulls away.
"You should go on another trip," she spits, her voice shaking. "Go somewhere far, far away—somewhere you can fuck up some other person’s life!"
The memory cuts like a blade, slicing through him. He turns his head, blinded by headlights. There’s a screech of tyres, a scream—Penelope’s scream—and then…
Pain.
It shatters his world into fragments of light and sound. But even through the agony, one thing remains.
Penelope. Penelope. Penelope.
------------------------------------
Colin wakes fully with a start, his chest heaving. The world is too bright, too loud. The fluorescent lights above him sear his vision and the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor drills into his skull.
He forces his eyes shut for a reprieve, only to be faced with a different torment: the moment he destroys, everything echoes in his mind, over and over, like a curse he can’t escape.
"Unremarkable."
Penelope’s pale cheeks, her lips trembling as she fought to hold back tears.
He had meant to protect her. That’s what he tells himself. If he downplayed her importance, if he dismissed her in front of Fife and the others, they wouldn’t go after her. They’d sink their teeth into someone else.
But his drunken, half-baked plan had backfired. Colin’s words weren’t the truth—they were armour.
He said those words to deflect, to shield her from the gaze of men like Fife, who would leer and tease, turning her into a game for their amusement. If he gave them any indication of how much Penelope meant to him, they’d notice her, really notice her, and Colin couldn’t stand the thought.
She wasn’t theirs to admire or pursue or to mock. She was his, and he was hers.
They belonged to each other in a way that felt unspoken but undeniable. It was a secret, perfect world of just the two of them.
Yet even as he guarded her from others, he couldn’t help the growing knot of fear inside him. Colin had started looking at her differently, and Penelope’s own gazes began holding something deeper, something more. He wanted her—in every way a man could want a woman—and he thought she may have wanted him like that, too.
But he wasn’t certain. He was never certain when it came to Penelope, and that terrified him.
What if he was wrong? What if he was seeing love where it didn’t exist, as he had before? What if he misread her feelings, dove in too quickly, and ruined everything?
Losing her wasn’t an option.
Penelope wasn’t just his best friend; she was the first person who ever made him feel like he could breathe. The thought of losing that scared him more than he wanted to admit, more than he could even bear.
He thought back to Marina, to the hollow "I love yous" he’d said at the prescribed three-month mark as his brothers and the internet advised. He’d said them out of obligation before hanging up the phone or stepping out of a car, but the words had never carried the weight he thought that they were supposed to. He didn’t feel for Marina what his mother described feeling for his father, or what Daphne had for Simon, or Anthony for Kate. For so long, he’d assumed the problem was him—that he was incapable of loving someone the way he ought to or even doing it correctly.
But with Penelope, everything was different. The overwhelming love, the longing, the desire—it was all-consuming. And for the first time, he wondered if maybe the problem hadn’t been with him after all. Perhaps he’d just been with the wrong person before.
And maybe, just maybe, this time, he’d finally found the right one.
"Unremarkable."
Until he ruined everything.
"Unremarkable."
Colin’s eyes snap open, his heart pounding.
"Unremarkable."
The room is sterile and unfamiliar, with walls that are blinding white. Machines beep around him, their rhythmic sounds foreign and unsettling.
Panic grips him. He claws at his arm, trying to tear at the IV embedded in his vein. The sting of the needle is sharp, but it’s nothing compared to the chaos in his head.
"Colin, stop!" Violet’s voice is high-pitched, frantic.
He doesn’t hear her. His body moves on instinct, driven by an overwhelming need to escape. His chest rises and falls rapidly, his breaths shallow and ragged.
The door bursts open, and suddenly, there are hands on him—strong, unyielding. Dr Danbury’s voice cuts through the chaos, sharp and commanding.
"Hold him still before he hurts himself!"
Colin thrashes, his fists swinging wildly. He catches a glimpse of Penelope in the doorway, her face pale, her eyes wide with horror.
"Get her out of here!" he tries, his voice breaking.
Penelope flinches, her body jerking as if he’s struck her.
"Please, someone get her out!"
Eloise steps forward, grabbing Penelope’s arm. "Come on, Pen," she says softly, her tone firm.
"No!" Penelope cries, her voice rising in desperation. She struggles against Eloise’s grip, her eyes locked on Colin. "I’m not leaving him!"
But Eloise is relentless, pulling Penelope into the hallway as doctors and nurses flooded into the room.
From the other side of the glass, Penelope watches as they pin Colin to the bed. His screams echo through the corridor, raw and broken, until the doctors administer a sedative.
And then there’s silence.
------------------------------------
“Can you tell me your full name?”
A blinding light shines over Colin's eyes, causing him to wince. “Colin Christopher Bridgerton.”
Dr Danbury’s eyes flicker down to the chart in her hands. “What year is it?”
“2024.”
“How old are you presently?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Good, good,” Dr Danbury murmurs, scribbling down his responses. "You're very lucky that your family was around to call for emergency services when you had this late-stage bilateral tonic-clonic seizure, Mr Bridgerton...How are you feeling otherwise?"
Shifting in the hospital bed, Colin attempts to sit up, urgency in his voice. “I…I remember now.”
“You remember what exactly?” Dr Danbury peers up at him, her gaze sharp and assessing.
“The accident. What happened. What I did… what I did to Penelope… everything,” Colin's voice shakes as he twists the hospital blanket tightly in his fists. "I’m her villain,” he whispers to himself.
Dr Danbury opens her mouth, then hesitates, her expression unreadable. She shuts it again, turning toward the door. Without a word, she exits the room, leaving Colin staring after her form, his heart pounding.
Colin strains to hear any sign of familiar voices beyond the hospital's background hum. The door is only partially closed, but he can’t make out anything clearly—just murmurs that slip away from his grasp.
------------------------------------
Hours pass. Colin drifts in and out of consciousness. Each time he wakes, he’s met with a barrage of questions and exams, each moment spent alone. He wonders if Penelope is sitting in a waiting area, anxiety churning inside her as she waits for answers.
Twisting his lips in frustration, he strains his ears, desperate for a familiar voice. The murmurs of Dr Danbury drift through the crack in the door, just barely distinguishable.
Dr Danbury’s usual cool demeanour is rattled with unsettling tension. Her voice sounds more drawn, and she steps quicker than normal. “I need you to come to my office,” she says.
“No. What’s going on with him? What’s wrong?” someone—Penelope? —pushes back, her tone sharper than Colin’s ever heard before.
The voices rise, each one tumbling over the other in a frantic rush—his siblings, no doubt, their concern laced with confusion.
“Please, to my office,” Dr Danbury insists, her voice taut.
“I just need to see him!” Penelope shouts, and its force rattles Colin. Penelope never raised her voice unless there was something worth shouting about—something that mattered deeply. Colin could never shake the feeling that, at that moment, he was not the one deserving of her anger.
Colin catches fragments of their ongoing argument as more voices join in, but then the sound of hurried footsteps cuts through it all.
The door bursts open. Penelope Featherington, eyes wide with panic, storms into the room, followed by a defeated Dr Danbury, whose shoulders are heavy with the weight of whatever she has to say.
The door slams shut behind them with a resounding clank, echoing through the sterile room.
“Penelope, this—”.
She turns toward Dr Danbury, her eyes wide and pleading. “Please, please just let me speak with him, and then I’ll go; I just need to talk to Colin,” Penelope begs.
Dr Danbury purses her lips, releasing a dejected sigh. “Fine,” she relents. “You get fifteen minutes, but if anything begins to seem off, I will be coming in whether you’d like me to or not. If you need me more immediately, I’ll be just outside.”
Penelope nods eagerly, and with that, Dr Danbury steps out of the room.
And then there were two.
“Colin?” Penelope asks, her voice tentative.
He’s already crying. The tears fall freely down his face, each one a reminder of everything he’s lost, everything he’s done.
Slowly, Penelope approaches him as if he’s a spooked buck, afraid of what he might do next. Like she was his hunter, and he was her prey—if only that were true. Maybe then, he wouldn’t be in this mess.
Colin grips the edge of the hospital bed, his knuckles white, trying to anchor himself against the storm that rages inside his chest. He can’t meet her gaze. He doesn’t dare.
Penelope delicately places her hand against his cheek, and for a fleeting moment, he allows himself to feel the warmth of her touch—so warm, so alive, so real. He clings to it like a lifeline.
"Real or not real?" he murmurs, his voice small and fragile.
“I—I—what do you mean? Like... is the hospital real?” she stutters, confusion deepening the lines on her face.
Colin pulls away sharply, watching her hand fall, her forehead creasing with concern.
“The night of Ben’s art gallery—was that real?”
Penelope bites at her lower lip, gnawing on the already-peeled skin.
Her tell. The one he finds so endearing. The one he knows when she’s trying to hide something.
“Which part?” she finally asks, her voice small.
“All of it,” he says, then hesitates, “Actually, the part when I—I said to Fife that—”
Colin shakes, struggling to force out the words that came so easily before, but they’re trapped now, lodged in his throat like stones.
“You don’t...” she shakes her head as if she doesn’t want to hear what he’s about to say.
“Was that real or not real?” Colin demands, his voice trembling.
“Penelope hesitates, then whispers, “Real.”
It feels like the wind is knocking out of him as if his lungs are drained of air. Not because he didn’t think he was capable of saying something so heinous—but because he knows he is. He knows it was real.
"Penelope," he says, his voice low, fractured. "You need to leave. Now."
He hears her sharp intake of breath, but he forces himself to keep going, each word a dagger in his chest. "I don’t want you here. I don’t—" His throat tightens, bile rising. "I don’t deserve this. Any of this. You shouldn’t waste your life on me."
The silence that follows is suffocating.
He dares a glance at her. Her face is pale, her eyes wide, filled with unshed tears. He can’t bear to look at her like this—like he’s worth saving like he’s worth fighting for.
When he knows that isn’t.
"Please," he whispers, his voice breaking. "Just go."
Penelope steps closer, her hands reaching out to comfort him, but he flinches away, the rawness of his emotions too much to bear.
"No. You shouldn’t be with me. I hurt you—I’m horrible."
Pain flickers on her face, and he knows that he’s leaving more and more scars on her delicate skin.
Can he do anything besides hurt her? Is he really such a monster?
He wants to grab her hands, beg her to forgive him, to see beyond the guilt and fear in his eyes, to see the man he wishes he could be. But instead, all he feels is the weight of his self-loathing.
"I love you enough to let you go," he says, his voice strained. "You deserve better than this."
But she shakes her head, a fiery resolve replacing the pain in her eyes. "Why does everyone else try to decide for me?" she snaps, her voice trembling but strong. "Why do you think you get to push me away just because you’ve decided you’re not good enough? That’s not your choice, Colin. It’s mine."
His heart skips a beat. His eyes widen, surprised by the force in her words.
"I love you," she says, her voice softer now but no less fierce. "And you don’t get to tell me how to feel. You don’t get to decide that you’re a villain in my story just because it’s easier for you to hate yourself than to believe I might actually love you regardless."
Her words hit him like a freight train, leaving him breathless. He shakes his head, his chest tightening as he tries to comprehend the depth of her words.
"You don’t understand," he says hoarsely, his voice cracking. "I’ve already hurt you—I’ve destroyed you—and I can’t..." His breath catches, the weight of his guilt suffocating him. "I can’t live with myself knowing that I’ve done that. Knowing that I might do it again."
Her hand reaches for his, but he pulls away, wrapping his arms around himself. The warmth of her touch is almost unbearable. "You’re better off without me," he says, choking on the words. Don’t you see that? You deserve so much more than this—than me."
"Stop it," she says firmly, her hands trembling but clenched into fists. "Stop deciding what I deserve like it’s some noble sacrifice. You’re not protecting me, Colin—you’re running away."
Her words box his ears and suffocate his lungs, and all he craves is retreat—inside himself, to another country, anywhere but here.
"I choose you," she says, her voice breaking. "Over and over, I choose you. And I need you to start choosing yourself, too. I love you."
“No,” Colin says, shaking his head rapidly, the rejection clawing at him. “You can’t choose me.”
“Why not?” she demands, her voice rising with desperation. "Why does everyone think it’s okay to tell me what I can and cannot do?" She’s shouting now, her voice cracking. "I choose you, Colin.”
"Why haven’t you chosen yourself? Why do you keep picking me?"
"Because I love you!" she cries, the tears streaming down her face.
“I love you enough to set you free of me," he says, his voice breaking.
"Well, I love you enough to fight to stay," she pushes back. "I’ve already forgiven you, Colin."
"I don’t forgive me, Penelope!" he shouts, surprising them both. She raises a hand, placating him, but he pulls back.
"But you said you love me," she whispers, her voice trembling.
"I do love you!" he cries, his voice breaking with the weight of his pain. "Which is why I need you to go."
They both stand there, a chasm between them, the silence deafening. Penelope’s eyes search his, but Colin can’t bear to look back. “You…we can fix this together, Colin. I know we can.”
“Your life should not focus on fixing me!” Colin says, his voice shaking with the weight of his words, the guilt near suffocating. “I’m a bad person, Penelope. I hurt you so, so badly.” The tears fall freely now, a torrent he can’t hold back.
Penelope’s eyes widen, tears falling wildly as she watches him crumble. “You’re hurting me now, Colin,” she sobs, stepping closer, her hands reaching out to him like she’s desperate to bridge the distance he’s trying to create.
He shudders under her gaze, his voice thick with grief. “Yes, but letting you go will mean that I won’t ever be able to hurt you again.” He forces himself to look at her, but his eyes are empty, distant as if he’s already resigned himself to the idea that she would be better off without him. “That’s the only way I can protect you.”
Penelope’s breath hitches, and her chest tightens with a mixture of disbelief and heartbreak. “So that’s it? Is this how it ends? After everything? After all we’ve been through?” She breathes heavily like she’s struggling to get the words out, as if each one is like a sharp blade cutting through her.
“I can’t continue to be the villain in your story, Penelope,” Colin says, his voice breaking with the weight of his self-loathing.
Penelope’s frustration boils over, her hands shaking with helplessness. She throws her arms up in exasperation, the emotion spilling out of her like a river breaking through a dam. “Then stop being a villain, and let’s be happy together!” She steps forward, her voice desperate and pleading, but her resolve is clear. “You don’t have to do this.”
Colin's body is shaking, and he is tense. He is torn between the impulse to push her away and the aching need to hold on.
“We need to take a break or a pause or something then,” he chokes out, his voice strained with sorrow. “Because I’m terrible, Penelope. If either of our daughters”—his voice cracks, the thought of them brings him to the brink— “were to have a man treat them as I had you—” He falters, unable to finish, his emotions overwhelming him. The sob that escapes him is raw, guttural. “I wish the accident would have killed me so you wouldn’t have to continue to be hurt by me.”
“Never, ever say that again, do you hear me?” Penelope’s face burns furiously red, water boiling over before she stumbles backwards, her entire body wracked with sobs. It’s like his words hit her like a physical blow, and she can barely breathe out the weight of them. “All this… love, this life, the future you dreamed for us—is just all over?” Her voice is barely a whisper, lost in the depth of her pain. “You’re giving up on us…on them?”
Colin goes still, like a statue carved from stone. His eyes are empty, the weight of his own guilt pulling him deeper into despair. “Just like everyone said,” he mutters, voice flat and devoid of hope, “it wasn’t real anyway.”
The words land heavily between them, an unbridgeable chasm of disillusionment and regret. Penelope looks at him, and his heart breaks for her, for them, and for the life they almost had. He wants to scream, to shake her, to make her see what he sees.
But instead, she whispers, “You’re wrong, Colin. You’re wrong. This—you and me—this is real. And I won’t let you destroy us.” With tears still cascading, she pulls open the hospital room door. “Agatha, you can come back in, I’m leaving.”
------------------------------------
As the day slips into evening, the only person still by Colin’s side is his mother, who sits in the hospital chair beside his bed, her crochet needles moving slowly through the yarn.
“Mum?” Colin speaks up tentatively, his voice fragile in the stillness.
“Yes, dear?” Violet looks up from her work, peering over her glasses with a soft smile.
“Can I ask you a question?”
She smiles kindly. “Well, you can certainly try.”
“Why didn’t any of you tell me what a monster I was to Penelope?”
A shadow falls over Violet’s warm expression, and her face suddenly seems much older, as though the years have caught up to her at that moment. “It wasn’t for us to tell.”
“But why,” Colin continues, his voice rising with frustration, “did any of you, in good conscience, ask her to help me? Because, from where I’m standing, I was an absolute asshole to her, and everyone just let it slide. Why? Why did you all think that was okay?” Colin laughs bitterly, his emotions cracking through. “What was the reason? What was the excuse?”
Violet sets her crochet needles down, her hands trembling slightly as she opens her mouth to respond, but Colin’s words spill out faster than she can interrupt.
“Is it because silence has become the default in this family?” Colin presses, the anger surging through him. “We don’t even talk about Dad!”
“Colin Christopher Bridgerton!” Violet stands up from her seat, her voice sharp, cutting through the tension. The room feels unnervingly quiet. “That is not fair, and you know it.”
“Mum, I—”
Violet raises her hand to stop him. “No, you’ve said your peace. Now I get to say mine.”
She takes a deep breath, gathering herself. “I have always loved Penelope. I’ve loved her like a daughter like she’s one of my own. And, in many ways, she is one of my own. I’ve loved her for who she is—always—and I will continue to, even if time and distance tear her away from us. Even if she and Eloise drift apart, or if she moves far away, I will always love her, Colin. And I know, deep down, that you all do too.” Her voice trembles slightly, but her conviction is unwavering. “And while there were times when I selfishly wished you could have loved her more, that you would make her a Bridgerton, I knew it was a foolish hope. I couldn’t force that. I couldn’t coerce you two together.”
Violet exhales, her gaze shifting somewhere far away as she recalls her thoughts during those days. “But there were times, Colin, when I thought… maybe you saw her the way she saw you. That there was something there, something more, and you just needed time.”
Her eyes flicker to him. “So, when the accident happened, and she kept orbiting around us, I thought… I thought things were still okay between you two. I had heard whispers from your siblings that you’d fought, but I assumed the accident had brushed it all under the rug. It was just a stupid fight between best friends, I thought.”
But her voice wavers. “But the longer you stayed in that coma, Colin…” Her hands shake, and her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “The more I had to come to terms with the fact that you might not come back. And when you woke up, asking for Penelope… Of course, I had my blinders on. All I could think was Colin needs Penelope. We’ll get Colin his Penelope.”
“But why, Mum?” Colin’s voice cracks with confusion. “Surely the others were at least hesitant—”
“Because we almost lost you, Colin!” Violet’s voice breaks, sharp and desperate. The words echo through the room, startling them both. Violet has never been a mother who shouts. Even when angry, she preferred glares and quiet threats. But now, her emotions flood out uncontrollably. “I’ve already lost the love of my life in your father… the thought of losing another, losing one of my children, of losing you—” Her words crumble, her composure breaking.
She walks slowly to his bed, sitting on the edge and placing her trembling hand against his cheek. Her voice is a whisper, full of agony. “I couldn’t lose you too. No mother should have to bury a child, Colin. I thought… I thought that you—”
Colin can't bear to hear more. He doesn’t want to. He reaches out, pulling his mother into an embrace, his chest aching as he holds her tight. She sobs against him, and he joins her, tears flowing freely, mourning the lost love and the “what-ifs” that now haunt them both.