Chapter 305

Musuc Recomendation: Willing and Able by Noah Kahan.

….

Christian stared at her.

Mrs. Sinclair’s tears spilled over.

“I should have been proud of you for choosing your own life. I should have asked you what you wanted. I should have listened when you told me that you were unhappy.”

She shook her head. “Instead, I made you fight me for the right to be yourself.” Her voice broke. “I am so sorry.”

Christian turned away.

He couldn’t look at her.

He had wanted those words for so long. Now that they had finally come, he didn’t know what to do with them.

It could not erase the loneliness. It could not make the hurt disappear.

Christian lowered his head.

His eyes burned. He pressed his lips together, fighting the sudden, painful pressure in his throat.

He did not want to cry in front of her. He didn’t want to be the little boy who had waited for his mother to notice him.

He didn’t want to need anything from her.

Mrs. Sinclair watched him.

She could see the struggle in the rigid line of his shoulders, and the way his fingers curled around Kylie’s hand as though he needed something to hold on to.

She wanted to reach for him.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me today,” she whispered.

Christian closed his eyes.

“I’m not even asking you to forgive me at all, if that’s not something you can do.”

Her voice trembled. “I just want you to know that I don’t want to lose you.”

She paused.

“And I don’t want to keep hurting you because I’m afraid of what happens when I stop trying to control your life.”

Christian’s breath caught.

Mrs. Sinclair looked at him with tears shining in her eyes. “I want to know you again.”

He went still.

She swallowed.

“I want to know the man you’ve become. I want to meet the woman you love properly, not as someone I’m trying to measure against my expectations. I want to hear about your life without turning every conversation into a discussion about what you should be doing differently.”

She gave a small, trembling smile.

“And if you let me, I would like to learn how to be your mother without making you feel as though you have to fight me to breathe.”

Christian looked at her.

For the first time since she entered the room, he saw no expectation in her face. She wasn’t asking him to agree that she had meant well.

It was the most vulnerable he had ever seen her. And it hurt.

God, it hurt.

Because beneath all the anger, beneath all the years of disappointment, he was still her son. He had never stopped being her son.

He had only stopped believing that being her son meant she would know how to love him.

Christian looked at Kylie.

Her face was peaceful.

The monitor continued its steady rhythm.

He thought of the night before, of the terror that had consumed him when he believed he might lose her.

He thought of how little he had cared about anything else.

A tear slipped from the corner of his eye. He didn’t wipe it away. For several seconds, he sat completely still.

Then he released Kylie’s hand carefully and stood.

Mrs. Sinclair watched him, hardly daring to breathe.

Christian moved around the bed. He stopped in front of her. For a moment, he simply looked at her.

She looked older than he remembered.

Not physically.

There were no new lines he could point to, no obvious signs of time having changed her. But something in her face seemed unguarded.

She wasn’t trying to appear untouchable. She wasn’t trying to convince him that she had everything under control.

She looked like a woman who had finally understood that she could lose something she loved by trying too hard to keep it.

Christian’s throat tightened. “Mum.”

The word came out rough.

Mrs. Sinclair’s face crumpled.

He barely had time to see it before he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.

For one second, she froze. Then Christian buried his face in the side of her neck.

His eyes closed.

A single tear slipped down his cheek and disappeared against her skin. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

He had spent years teaching himself not to reach for her, and not to expect comfort.

And now, with his arms around her, he felt the full weight of everything he had tried not to want.

The little boy who had wanted his mother to be proud of him. The teenager who had tried to earn her approval.

The man who had finally walked away because he could no longer live as someone else’s idea of himself.

All of them seemed to exist inside him at once. And for the first time in years, he let himself be held by her.

Mrs. Sinclair made a small, broken sound. Then she wrapped both arms around him tightly.

Her fingers dug into his hair. “I’m so sorry, Son.” She sniffed, holding him closer. “I’m so sorry.”

Christian’s arms tightened around her.

She pressed her cheek against his head, tears spilling freely now. Her voice broke. “I should have loved you better.”

Christian shut his eyes.

The words went through him like a blade. They were what he had needed to hear. For years.

He had wanted her to understand that he hadn’t walked away because he stopped loving her.

He had walked away because loving her had begun to hurt too much.

He had wanted her to understand that he wasn’t rejecting his family because he thought himself better than them.

He had simply wanted to stop feeling as though his life belonged to everyone except him.

He had wanted her to understand that he could love her and still refuse to live by her rules.

And now she did. Or at least, she was trying.

Christian’s fingers curled into the fabric at her back. His breath shook. Quiet tears slipped down his face while he pressed it against her neck.

Mrs. Sinclair felt them.

She tightened her arms around him. “Oh, my boy.” The words escaped her before she could stop them. “My sweet boy.”

Christian’s shoulders trembled.

She ran her fingers through his hair, the way she had a rare few times when he was small and had woken from a nightmare he couldn’t explain.

“I’m here,” she whispered.

He almost laughed at the words.

She was here now.

He loved her. That was the truth he had tried to bury beneath anger. He loved her. And he had missed her.

Mrs. Sinclair pulled back just enough to look at his face. Her hands moved to his cheeks.

She wiped away the tears with her thumbs.

Christian’s eyes were red. He looked exhausted.

She had not seen him look at her like this in years. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

Christian swallowed. He nodded.

Her lips trembled.

He drew a shaky breath. “I hear you.”

She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. “All right.”

He looked away, trying to collect himself.

He turned back to face her, and studied her. Then, for the first time that morning, he gave her a small, genuine smile.

Mrs. Sinclair laughed softly through her tears. Then she pulled him into another hug.

Christian let her. He rested his chin against her shoulder and closed his eyes.

Emilia’s throat tightened.

Emilia watched Christian pull back from his mother.

He wiped his face with the heel of his hand, looking faintly embarrassed to have been seen crying.

Mrs. Sinclair touched his cheek.

Emilia smiled faintly. She glanced at Kylie.

Mrs. Sinclair turned toward her. “Emilia.”

Emilia met her gaze.b”Mrs. Sinclair.”

The older woman’s expression softened. “I owe you an apology, too.”

Emilia blinked. “For what?”

“For the way I’ve treated your friend. I know Kylie is important to you. I know how much she means to Christian.”

She glanced at her son.

“And I should never have made either of you feel as though loving her was something to be ashamed of.”

Emilia’s swallowed, and cleared her throat. She had not expected that.

Mrs. Sinclair continued. “I can’t undo what I’ve said. But I can try to do better.”

Emilia looked at Christian.

He gave her a small nod.

She turned back to his mother. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Sinclair nodded. Then she looked at Kylie again.

“May I sit with her for a moment?”

Christian studied her face. He could still feel the ache of the last few minutes in his chest.

He looked at the chair beside the bed. “Yes.”

Mrs. Sinclair moved toward it. She sat down carefully, as though afraid of disturbing the young woman.

For a moment, she simply watched Kylie.

She looked at the monitor. “I am so sorry that your first experience of me was not what it should have been.”

She looked back at Kylie softly. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t expect you to trust me simply because I’ve apologised.”

She swallowed.

“But if you wake up and decide that you want nothing to do with me, I will respect that.” Her voice trembled. “I only hope you’ll give me the chance to know you someday.”

She glanced at Christian.

“And perhaps, if I’m very lucky, you’ll let me be part of the life you and my son build together.”

The room remained quiet.

Mrs. Sinclair looked down at her hands. “I’d like that very much.”

Christian watched her. He didn’t know what Kylie would say when she woke up.

He didn’t know whether she would welcome his mother’s apology or decide that she needed distance.