Chapter 270 Vomiting Blood
Byron lay on the cold, wet ground, his body trembling, his vision blurry from the blood in his mouth. His heart felt as though it were being torn apart, the pain unbearable, a constant reminder of everything he had lost. The world spun around him, the gray sky above mirroring the emptiness that had swallowed his soul.
He thought he could endure it. He thought he could carry on with the hope that Athena might return, that somehow, they would have a second chance. But with each passing second, it became harder to breathe, harder to think. The memory of her, the sharp edge of regret—he couldn’t escape it. “Thea, please return. Return to me.”
As his vision darkened, he barely heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching. A familiar voice—no, it couldn’t be. His mind was too clouded to think clearly. The figure that knelt beside him, her face etched with worry, was too blurry for him to recognize immediately.
“Byron, are you okay?” Freya’s voice was filled with panic, her hands trembling as she reached for him.
Freya. Byron’s heart twisted with conflicting emotions. She wasn’t Athena. She wasn’t the one he had loved, the one who had always been a light in his life. But as Freya hovered over him, her desperation, her care for him in this moment of weakness—it was the only thing that made sense to him.
He wanted to push her away. He wanted to scream at her for not being Athena, for not being the person he longed for. But he couldn’t. His body was too weak, and his mind was too consumed by the emptiness Athena had left behind.
Freya’s hands shook as she fumbled for her phone, calling for help. “Ambulance! Call an ambulance!” Her voice cracked as she tried to keep him conscious, her words frantic.
“Stay with me, Byron, please,” she whispered, kneeling closer, her eyes filled with unshed tears.
Byron’s mind drifted, the pain starting to numb as he felt himself sinking deeper into unconsciousness. He couldn’t hold on much longer. The reality of his situation began to blur with his memories of Athena—of their time together, of the love they had shared.
But Athena was gone.
How had it come to this?
As Freya desperately tried to revive him, George stood frozen, his gaze lingering on the scene before him. The woman who had rushed to Byron’s side wasn’t Athena—he knew that, deep in his heart. But the resemblance was undeniable.
She had the same fire in her eyes, the same urgency to help. The same intense need to fix what was broken. But it wasn’t Athena. And yet, George couldn’t help but wonder—had Byron, in some way, been trying to replace her all along? Had he been so consumed by guilt and grief that he had let someone else in, someone who could never be what Athena had been to him?
George’s thoughts were interrupted as Freya called again for the ambulance, her voice growing more frantic by the second.
It wasn’t right. None of this was. Byron, broken and lost, clung to the wrong person in his desperation. And George couldn’t help but wonder if any of them would ever find peace again—whether Freya, Byron, or even himself.
The storm raged on, just as the turmoil in their lives continued to swirl around them, a never-ending cycle of loss and longing.
But for now, all George could do was watch as Byron’s future hung in the balance, with only Freya at his side. And in that moment, he understood something bitterly painful: Athena was truly gone, and nothing could change that.
Not even the resemblance of another woman who had once been a substitute for a love that would never return.