This Life I Hand You Over To Him Chapter 2

Nate arrived just as the doctor stepped out into the hallway.

"She’s stable," the doctor said, peeling off his gloves. "Her blood pressure dropped suddenly, but there's no lasting damage. You can go in and see her."

Nate didn't hesitate. He pushed past the heavy swinging door and rushed inside.

I followed behind him, deliberately lagging half a step back.

Elena was propped up against the pillows, her skin pale and washed out under the fluorescent lights. She looked exactly as she had fifty years ago in that identical hospital bed.

The moment her eyes landed on Nate, her entire expression transformed.

"Nate... you didn't board the boat?"

My feet froze against the linoleum.

She had come back, too.

I stood just outside the doorframe. From this angle, I could only see her profile. Her eyes were fixed entirely on Nate.

In fifty years of marriage, Elena had looked at me with tenderness, with deep gratitude, and with steady reliance. But she had never looked at me like that. That look held a fierce, blinding light—a passion that had defied decades of domestic life, mortality, and time itself.

Nate looked bewildered. "Marcus called me and said you collapsed, so I turned right around."

Elena’s lips parted. Her gaze flicked toward me in the doorway for a fraction of a second, then snapped back to Nate. Her eyes welled with tears, and she began to sob openly.

Nate panicked, fumbling through his pockets for a tissue. "Hey, silly girl, why are you crying? You're okay. The doctor said you're going to be fine."

I stepped back into the corridor and quietly pulled the door shut, giving them their space.

The fluorescent bulbs above buzzed with a low, monotonous hum. The stark white light rendered everything plain and merciless.

A small memory surfaced from our past life. A few weeks after Elena had agreed to marry me, I had asked her, "Elena, when did you first realize you liked me?"

She had paused, offering a soft, evasive smile. "You've always been good to me, Marcus. I've always known that."

Back then, I took that as an answer. If a woman agreed to build a life with you, wasn't her appreciation of your kindness the very foundation of love?

Now I understood. She hadn't answered my question because she couldn't.

She had never loved me. She was grateful to me, comfortable with me, dependent on the shelter I provided when her world collapsed. She married me because she needed an anchor to survive the storm of her grief.

I thought I was her destination. In reality, I was just her emergency exit.

Nate had always been her destination.

After half an hour, Nate stepped out into the corridor. He leaned back against the wall, fished a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, and offered one to me.

"She told me," Nate said, scratching the back of his neck. "She said she’s in love with me. Said she has been for years."

I took the cigarette and didn't speak.

"It caught me off guard," Nate said, flicking his lighter. "We grew up together. I’ve always seen her like a sister."

I glanced at Nate’s face. On his upper lip, there was a faint, blurred smudge of color, slightly redder than the skin around it.

Elena had never kissed me on the mouth. Not once in fifty years.

On our wedding night, when I leaned in, she had gently turned her head away, murmuring that she had a strange phobia about germs and close contact. I told her it was fine, that we had all the time in the world. Over the years, whenever I tried, she always had a polite excuse—a headache, fatigue, feeling self-conscious.

I believed her. I told myself she was just naturally reserved.

For fifty years, the closest intimacy she ever allowed was a peck on her cheek or her forehead. And every single time, her fingers would instinctively reach up to brush the spot clean afterward.

It had never been a phobia.

She was simply keeping that part of herself untouched for the only man she wanted.

"What are you going to do?" I asked quietly.

Nate exhaled a cloud of gray smoke, looking troubled. "I don't know. She just woke up, she's still weak... I didn't have the heart to shut her down."

I took a drag of my cigarette. The smoke tasted bitter. "Elena is a good woman. If you don't want to hurt her, give it an honest chance."

Nate turned his head, searching my face. "What about you, Marcus? I always thought you had a thing for—"

"You're mistaken," I interrupted smoothly. "I'm seeing someone else."

It was a lie, but the truth no longer had any currency. I had spent an entire lifetime trying to warm a stone to human temperature. I wasn't going to waste this life doing it again.

Nate crushed his cigarette into the wall-mounted ashtray, clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder, and headed back into the room.

The door remained slightly ajar. I didn't look inside.

Twenty minutes later, Nate walked out, supporting Elena by the arm. When she saw me leaning against the wall, her face shifted subtly—not from warmth to coldness, but through a messy knot of awkwardness, guilt, and defensive calculation.

Then, her expression froze into a clean, distant chill.