Page 33 of Shattering

He wanted to rush to Callum's place.

He wanted to kick the damn door in, grab her, drag her back by her hair if he had to.

But then he remembered the way she had looked at him before leaving.

That cold, resigned certainty.

The DNA test was going to happen.

Nothing else mattered now.

He fell asleep with Cadi's T-shirt clenched in his fist, pressed against his chest like it could somehow hold him together.

His eyes burned. His head pounded. Sleep did not come for the longest time.

When it finally did, it was restless, fractured-filled with nightmares that weren't nightmares at all, just memories twisted into something worse.

Cadi laughing as she painted, the tip of her nose smudged with blue.

Cadi rolling her eyes at him, muttering about how orthopaedic surgeons were just overpaid jocks who slept through their internal medicine rotations.

Cadi on their wedding day, breath-taking in white lace, looking at him like he was the only thing in the world that mattered.

And then-

Her voice, cold, harder than he had ever heard it before.

"I only have Tomos now."

Gray's eyes snapped open.

His breathing was ragged, his body tense, a deep ache lodged somewhere in his chest that he couldn't shake off.

He stared at the ceiling for a long moment before sitting up abruptly.

He needed a drink.

Gray made his way downstairs, his steps slow, dragging, like his body was resisting every movement.

His hands went automatically to the back of his whiskey cupboard, pulling out a bottle of Teeling.

He didn't bother with a glass.

The first sip burned down his throat, but he didn't stop.

Neither did the second.

Or the third.

The house was silent, except for the occasional soft clink of the bottle against the counter as he drank.

At some point, he lost track of time.

Somewhere past the halfway point of the bottle, the realization finally hit him.

If he had gotten it wrong. But how?

If he had-

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