The Unbearable Pain
HARDIN’S POV
“Ariana,” I whispered, the ache in my throat tightening like a noose. “Please… just talk to me.”
She didn’t even look at me.
Not a twitch. Not a blink. Just that same cold, distant stare at the far wall—like I wasn’t standing right in front of her. Like I wasn’t the man who would’ve crossed oceans and burned empires just to keep her safe.
“I—I don’t know what I did,” I murmured, my voice cracking as I moved closer to her bedside. “But if I hurt you… if I said something, or didn’t say something… please, baby. Just tell me.”
Nothing.
Not even a flinch.
My heart hammered so violently I could hear it in my ears. The silence was maddening. Deafening. I dropped to my knees beside her bed, not caring how pathetic I looked, not caring about anything except the wall she was building between us.
“Ariana, this silence—” My jaw clenched. “It’s eating me alive.”
Still nothing.
I reached for her again, my hand trembling, aching for the feel of her skin—but she flinched back, pressing herself deeper into the pillow, away from me like I was some disease.
“Don’t,” she said sharply.
One word. One damn word.
But it felt like a bullet.
I pulled back, my hands falling limply to my sides. My chest heaved like I’d been sprinting through a firestorm.
Her eyes flicked toward me, just for a second.
And then she laughed.
But it wasn’t her laugh.
It wasn’t light or melodic. It wasn’t the laugh that used to fill rooms, or spill out in bed when I whispered something stupid in her ear.
No.
This was hollow. Bitter. Ugly.
Like it hurt her to let it out.
“You’re really gonna stand there,” she said slowly, “and pretend like you don’t know what happened?”
I stared at her, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Her lips parted in a humorless scoff, eyes flashing with something sharp—something that felt like betrayal.
“You don’t know?” she repeated, tilting her head as her bruised fingers curled around the edge of the blanket. “Of course you don’t.”
I shook my head, desperate, trying to piece together a puzzle I didn’t even know existed. “Ariana, I swear to God—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Get out.”
Her voice was cold steel.
I flinched. “What?”
“I said—get out.”
I took a step back, stunned.
My world—our world—was falling apart by the second and I didn’t even know what triggered it.
Her chest rose and fell, her eyes burning with something I couldn’t name.
Pain?
Anger?
Hate?
She picked up the pillow from behind her head and hurled it at me. It hit my chest and dropped to the floor with a dull thud, but the damage was already done.
“GET OUT!”
My ears rang.
I didn’t move.
I couldn’t.
Her voice had never cut me like that before. Not even in our worst fights. This—this was something else. This was a woman I didn’t recognize.
“Ariana,” I said her name like a prayer, broken and trembling. “Please, don’t do this. Not like this.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away so fast I almost missed it.
I wanted to run to her. To grab her. To hold her until she remembered how much I loved her.
But I couldn’t move.
Not when she looked at me like I was the villain in her story.
With no other choice, I nodded slowly. My throat burned like acid, my chest splintering in places I didn’t even know could break.
“I’ll go,” I whispered. “But I’m not giving up on you. On us.”
She didn’t respond.
Didn’t even breathe.
Just turned her face to the wall, like I no longer existed.
I walked out of the room like a ghost—barely feeling the floor under my feet, barely seeing the hallway ahead. The door clicked shut behind me and I leaned against it, heart thundering so hard it drowned out the world.
What the hell just happened?
What did I do?
Joan looked up from her seat across the hall, startled by my expression. “Mr Richard?”
I held up a hand, needing a second. Just one second to collect what little strength I had left.
But it wasn’t strength I needed.
It was answers.
Real, tangible answers.
And I had none.
I ran a shaking hand down my face, dragging my fingers through my hair as I paced the corridor. Everything felt warped. Unreal. A nightmare bleeding into daylight. I wanted to rip the walls down. Scream. Shatter glass. Do something, anything, to match the chaos inside me.
Ariana was alive.
But whatever we had—whatever we were—was hanging by a thread I didn’t know how to hold onto.
I slumped onto the bench beside the vending machine and stared at the tiled floor, blinking hard as the fluorescent lights buzzed above me like flies.
Was it something I said on the phone?
Something she saw?
Did someone… tell her something?
A lie?
The thought made my chest constrict.
I replayed every moment from the last forty-eight hours. Every word. Every silence. Every glance.
I wanted to call Joan. Demand answers. Ask her what the hell was happening that I didn't know.
But I didn’t want to drag anyone else into this.
This was between me and her.
And whatever it was… I had to fix it.
Somehow.
Eventually, I stood and walked back toward her room—but I couldn’t bring myself to go in. Instead, I leaned against the wall a few feet away and stared at the closed door like it might open on its own. Like she might come out, run into my arms, tell me it was a misunderstanding.
But the door stayed shut.
And so did she.
Hours passed.
Nurses came and went.
I sat in silence.
Waiting.
Praying.
Hurting.
But I stayed.
Because leaving meant giving up.
And I couldn’t do that.
Not when I loved her more than anything in this world.
Not when every beat of my heart still belonged to her—even if she wanted to throw it away.
At some point, I drifted into a restless, fitful sleep in the chair outside her room. I dreamt of her hand in mine, her lips brushing my ear as she whispered my name.
But when I woke, her door was still closed.
And the pain in my chest was still very, very real.
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