Chapter 612

Haydent tried to scream, but it felt like something was crushing my throat. I couldn’t even move to check on Hayden.

“Hayden, please, talk to me!” Yara’s voice cracked as she shook him, but he stayed dead silent, not even a twitch. I’d never seen him like this. Even when we shared a bed before, he always moved, always woke at the slightest sound, telling me, “Don’t move.” But now, nothing. What the hell is happening?

“Bruno, call an ambulance! Now!” Yara screamed, her face wet with tears.

The word “ambulance” sliced through the fog in my brain, and suddenly, everything hit me like a shock to the chest. It was like a breath I hadn’t been able to take before, and for the first time, I could actually move. I shoved myself up, scrambling toward Hayden.

“Rea, Jace,” Steve’s voice cut through the chaos, and then people were everywhere. He grabbed me, pulling me back, blocking me from getting to Hayden. By the time I turned to look again, Hayden was being hauled out by two people, rushing for the door. I wanted to run after them, but my legs wouldn’t move.

“Hayden,” I managed to choke out, but no one even looked at me. Bruno had been detained, and Jace was already on his way to the hospital. I just sat in a car, numb, my head replaying the image of Hayden falling over and over.

I waited in the ER for hours, from dawn until dusk. The lights in the operating room never went out. A doctor finally came out, and I rushed to him, but all he said was they were still trying to save him.

“Stop asking. Just wait,” Yara said, pulling me back into the chair. Unlike me, she was so calm. But I knew she was just as scared as I was.

I saw it in the way she screamed and cried, holding Hayden like he was the only thing that mattered. “He probably has a fracture in the back of his skull. That spot was soft when I held him,” she murmured.

My heart froze, and I just stared at her. Her eyes were locked on nothing, but she kept going. “If it wasn’t for the blow to his head, he could’ve handled the rest of it. He would’ve been fine.”

That one ball… he took it for me.

“Keira, you hate him, don’t you? But you’ve got it all wrong,” Yara said, her eyes locking onto mine. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

“He didn’t leave because he didn’t love you, or because he thought you liked someone else. He broke up with you to protect you. And in the end, he still protected you—with his own life,” Yara said, gripping her knees.

I glanced at her and saw the bruises on the back of her hands. I remembered how she’d been dodging or trying to block the balls when Hayden was protecting me. The bruises were from the hits. “Protecting me by breaking up with me… what does that even mean?” I asked, completely lost.

Yara sighed. “The truth is, you’re not a great partner to him. You don’t really get him. But it’s not your fault. He never told you because he was too afraid you’d worry.”

She was right. I didn’t fully understand him—not after everything. After we broke up, after he became the heir to the Hart family, after he saved Steve in Houston, I realized how much of him was still a mystery to me. But like Yara said, it wasn’t that I didn’t get him—it’s that he never let me: What could I do about that?