They Borrowed My Surgery Fund To Leave Me Behind novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Corridor

Ezra's POV

I was not family, so I stood in the ICU corridor with a paper cup of cold coffee and watched the door.

Tripp Aldridge had walked past me at the nurses' station twenty minutes earlier.

He had never met me in person. On the video calls I had been a rectangle in the corner of his screen, asking about retention numbers.

He did not look at me now.

He carried white roses and he was crying already, and I thought, he has practiced that.

The charge nurse had told me to wait until the patient was awake and strong enough for company.

Then she looked at the way I was gripping the cup and said, "You can stand at the curtain. Don't come in."

So I stood at the curtain.

Through the gap I saw Mara's face on the pillow, as white as the sheet.

I saw her eyes open and find Tripp, and I saw what they did.

Nothing. No flinch, no gasp.

She gave him a small, tired smile, the smile of someone who has decided what she is going to do.

I had never respected anyone so much in my life.

"I've been so scared," Tripp said, and I listened to him say it.

He pulled the chair up to her bed and sat with her hand in both of his.

"Where's everyone?" she whispered. Her voice was a thread.

"Wyatt's here. He's parking. Caleb's still at the retreat." He kissed her knuckles. "Babe, I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear all of it before you get upset."

"Okay."

"There's been a mix-up with Halyard."

I put my cup down on a cart.

"I don't know what you saw online. The press release said some things. Wyatt wrote it in a rush. It was a misunderstanding about a tribute and some of the wording came out wrong."

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