So this is it. This is why he's been distant. Why he's been avoiding my eyes. Why he's been treating me like something that might break if he holds too tightly.
I let out a slow breath.
"Deniz..."
His name comes out softer than I intended. He looks at me, and his voice is weak, frayed at the edges, like something worn thin by too much holding on.
"I heard the doctor. Your condition..." He swallows, his throat working against words that don't want to come.
"It's so complicated. Fragile. Because of your rut failing, because you're losing your Alpha trait..."
I stay silent.
So he heard. Everything. Every clinical word the doctor spoke, every assessment of my body's slow undoing, every careful explanation of what might come next.
He's been carrying this alone, all day, pretending not to know, pretending everything was fine, while I sat beside him in the car and ate dinner across from him and let him read medicine instructions aloud like nothing had changed.
