Him.

Through the glass, Marco watched his newborn son, Arwyn, swaddled in wires no thicker than threads. The infant's chest rose, as if each breath was a miracle.

Behind him, the doctor's voice fractured the silence. "There's… something you need to know."

Arlene's heart monitor beeped, steady. Marco turned slowly. The doctor stood framed in the doorway, her gaze avoiding his.

"The hemorrhage caused irreversible damage," she said. "Her organs are failing. She has less than an hour."

Victor, Arlene's father, collapsed into a chair, his face crumpling. Silent tears carved paths through his stubble. Beside him, Cedric—Arlene's brother—stiffened. A single tear slid down his cheek, too precise, too rehearsed. Performer, Marco thought bitterly.

Ria, Arlene's childhood friend, choked back a sob. "There must be a mistake—"

The doctor shook her head.

Marco didn't move. Couldn't. The world narrowed to Arlene's hand, pale against the hospital sheets, and the faint smile she wore even now.

Less than 24 hours.

That single phrase echoed in his skull over, and over.

"Marco…" She called him. He glanced back at her, and with a hopeless grin, he walked back, beside her.

Arlene squeezed his hand weakly, pulling him back from the void of his thoughts. Her voice was barely audible, fragile as glass. "C-can you… sit beside me for a while?"

His eyes widened, not from shock, but from her smile. It was faint, almost ethereal. She didn't care, even if the ground beneath her was crumbling.

"Yeah… I'm right beside you." He whispered back, but his voice quivered as he spoke. He turned his head back to Ria with a nod.

Ria silently signaled Victor and Cedric out. They were all hesitant at first, but they slowly considered what Arlene wanted just for that time. So they left, along with the doctor.

They were alone. The orange lamp flickered, and it cast her hair in gold. Her fingers brushed his cheek. "Don't cry. Not yet."

He swallowed. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Everything."

So, he asked her favorite color.

"Brown," she whispered. "Like your eyes."

He laughed, raw and broken. "You always lied about that."

Her weak chuckle turned into a cough. "Maybe I just wanted you to look closer."

When her journal slipped from his pocket, she stared at it, recognition flickering. "You found it."

He cradled the worn leather. "You wrote… you hoped I'd forgive you."

"There's nothing to forgive." Her grip tightened. "Just… stay."

She rolled her hazel eyes and didn't answer, but her gaze was fixed on him, and his eyes looked at both her and their baby. The silence between them was loud, but not awkward. 

"So, you got a name?" Marco smirked, smoothly brushing the strands of her hair with his hand.

"How about… Arwyn?"

'Arwyn. Arwyn Delacroix. That… sounds great.'

"Yeah. Arwyn fits." His gaze flicked to Arwyn, just lying down peacefully in the incubator.

But when her eyes blinked, almost closing, she gripped his hand with all her strength. 

"Marco…"

Her grip around his arm tightened, like she did when they were last alone together.

"I don't… I don't want to…"

"No, no no… It's okay, Arlene." He bit his lower lip, trying to hide the tears he was about to release. He forced another unsteady smile.

Hours bled away like nothing. He let her rest, though Arwyn's faint cries echoed from the incubator just there. 

Arlene's voice grew thinner and thinner.

She closed her eyes briefly, breathing shallow. When she opened them again, there was determination. She began.

"Hey… Promise me something, Marco."

"Don't… stop drawing." Her voice was firm despite its fragility. "Draw for Arwyn… Draw for us. Don't let this… Don't let me fade… Even just one minute."

"I promise," he choked out. Another tear spilled, no matter how he tried to hold it in. "I'll never stop."

Arlene chuckled for one last time. "You always… knew how to paint the world kinder."

And the lamp flickered more and more.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The monitor quickened, but Marco didn't call for help. He climbed onto the bed, lying beside her, and her head nestled in his shoulder.

The weight of her body went slack in his arms. The clock's relentless tick, and the stars shone bright beyond the hospital window barely broke the silence.

Meanwhile, Marco's lips trembled into a frown. He wanted her to remember these words that he'd say.

"I'm here," he repeated, his tears soaking into her hair. "I'm here."

But her breath hitched. She smiled wide.

"You always were."

His heartbeat matched the rhythm of the monitor. Fast, then faster.

"Arlene… Don't leave…" Marco's whisper barely left his lips.

And then—

Beeeeeeep!

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Endless tone.

His knees buckled. The world twisted.

The way his eyes flicked downward, the way his shoulders sagged. The way he…

It was over.

The three of them went back inside, hearing the endless, constant tone of the monitor.

And Marco hesitated, as if deciding who or where to look. Victor, her father, standing. Ria, her friend, pressing both hands over her mouth. Cedric, her brother, for once, too stunned to move.

"I–I'm sorry."

Silence. Crushing, suffocating silence.

And just like that, the weight of the world crashed down.

Ria's choked sob echoed, sharp and fractured. Victor slumped to a chair, burying his face in his hands like he didn't want to breathe anymore. And Cedric?

He stood apart, and his dry eyes darted between them all. He rehearsed the grief like a poorly written script.

Marco didn't cry. He could still hear the endless, constant, steady beep of the monitor, as if the sound was circling around him.

'It should've been me. It should've been...'

Even his thoughts were shaking.

Without another word, Marco turned away. He didn't look at Victor or Ria. 

He couldn't bear their grief. His own felt so raw, so selfish.

Ria watched him walk away. His footsteps had little to no sound. "Marco…"

As he walked out of the hospital, he didn't look back. He clutched the journal tighter than ever, he made a promise to himself.

I won't see her again.

—

Three days passed.

A crowd of black suits and teared–up faces. The sky was gray, as if mother nature knew when to rain and when to shine. The cemetery was quiet. It was just the occasional sniffle and pattering of raindrops swaying in the wind.

Victor stood by her grave, and his shoulders were hunched like it was carrying the weight of the world.

Ria clung beside him. She held a bouquet of the same flowers Marco had once bought for Arlene, from the same bouquet shop, but it never felt as vibrant as before. She glanced around the crowd, her eyes searching for someone who wasn't there. Because something was off.

Meanwhile, Cedric leaned against a tree. His expression was unreadable, like always. His polished shoes still gleamed despite the seemingly undying rain.

He watched the proceedings with detached interest, as if he were looking at a scene from a play he'd written himself.

"Where is he?" Ria muttered under her breath. Her voice was barely audible over the pleasant yet irritating patter of raindrops. 

She hadn't seen Marco since that night at the hospital.

No calls, no messages, no contact. Just pure emptiness where he used to be, where he started.

"He's not coming," Cedric interjected, his tone casual yet it was enough to cut through the silence. "Figures, don't it? Always running away when things get hard."

Ria shot him a glare, but deep down, she wondered if he was right. 

Why hadn't Marco come? Didn't he care? Or was it something else, entirely?

He stayed in his apartment, staring at the journal in his hands. Its pages were so worn from countless flipping. Night and day.

Every entry she wrote, he read.

But he'd gaze at the last line she wrote in her journal.

I just hope he can forgive me.

"She forgave me," he thought bitterly. "But I can't forgive myself."

Attending her funeral felt so wrong, like intruding on something forbidden. 

How could he face her family, knowing he'd failed her? Knowing he hadn't been there when she needed him most? Knowing that he'd been such a failure, a burden to all of them?

As the first shovel of dirt covered a part of Arlene's casket, Ria closed her eyes and whispered.

"I hope you're happy now, wherever you are."

Miles away, Marco dropped his pencil. His sketchbook lay open, the portrait of Arlene staring back at him. 

For the first time in almost forever, tears streamed down his face.

Outside, the rain stopped. A single ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, illuminating the city skyline. But Marco didn't notice. All he saw was her smile. 

One last reminder of the girl who had taught him how to live.

And so, the days that followed were a blur.

Marco moved through the days like a ghost. He spent hours in the NICU, watching Arwyn sleep. His tiny fingers curled and uncurled like he was searching for something, or someone to hold onto.

At night, he sat in the dim light of his apartment, her last words reverberated back at him, accusing and comforting.

"Don't… stop drawing. Draw for Arwyn… Draw for us."

He picked up his sketchbook for the first time in weeks, though his pencil trembled as it flew over the blank page. 

But the lines wouldn't come. Every stroke felt hollow, every shape lifeless. His passion was… shrinking as the days went on.

He slammed the sketchbook shut, his chest heaving.

One night, as Marco visited the hospital, Arwyn slept inside his glass cradle. Marco pressed a palm to the warm surface, tracing the shadow of his son's face.

Coincidentally, Victor would come as well, visiting Arwyn as often as Marco did.

But Cedric never came with Victor. Not even once.

Victor stumbled upon Marco, who sat beside Arwyn's small bed. He walked closer, to the point where Marco would notice.

So, Marco expected Victor's anger, his breath heaving when he saw him.

"He has your eyes."

Victor murmured behind him. The old man's voice was softer now, frayed at the edges. He didn't express anything like it, but he showed something else, the opposite.

Acceptance.

Marco didn't turn. "Hazel. Like hers."

Victor's hand hovered, then settled on Marco's shoulder. A truce, unspoken.

---

It'd been two months after her passing. Victor's truce led him to have contact with Ria. His drawings finally recovered, though his passion wasn't as big as it was before.

The hospital bills arrived in white envelopes. Marco paid them without hesitation.

His signature slashed across all the checks funded by gallery sales of his portraits.

Crimson in Morning Light, Hazel at Dusk. 

Collectors called them "raw," "haunting." But they didn't know the woman in the frames laughed at such bad puns and hated raisins.

At the day when Arwyn was finally getting discharged, the hospital slept. Marco sketched just beside Arwyn's incubator. Charcoal smudged the pages. 

Arwyn's tiny little hand, the curve of his squishable cheek, and the way his brow furrowed in sleep, so much like Arlene's.

"See?" Marco whispered, pressing the sketch to the glass. "I'm still drawing."

The doctors soon went inside and unhooked Arwyn's wires and tubes and swaddled him in a soft, white blanket. Marco cradled him, and Arwyn's weight was extremely light, but impossibly precious.

Ria stood outside the room, wearing a casual t-shirt and unusually large pants. Her smile was soft, shining as Marco walked outside the room. It was him. Arwyn.

They strolled down the hospital in the middle of the night. Ria parked her car right in front of the entrance door. It was particularly a new car she bought. It was a result of her share of Marco's income.

"Ready?" Ria then asked as she held the car door open.

Marco glanced back at the hospital, its windows glowing like distant stars. "No," he said. "But let's go."

The drive was quieter than he thought. He'd expected Arwyn's cries, but Arwyn was fast asleep, partly because of the nice air-conditioning of her car. But he never minded.

The city was always the same. Neon lights, skyscrapers, night markets, Ria took the long way to Marco's apartment. They arrived, and Marco got out of her car.

"Wait!"

He glanced back at Ria, confused yet his face was too tired to express it. "What?"

She chuckled, still unsure if Marco could take care of Arwyn. But, she had faith. "You'll do great."

Marco looked down. He was smiling. Arwyn's smile made him smile, even if it wasn't that deep. "I don't know."

"You will. Trust me."

And after that, she closed down the car window and revved up her car, speeding through the street like a highway. The engine of her car slowly faded away, but it still echoed.

And so, he opened his apartment once again, with a new housemate by his arms.

The apartment was too quiet. Marco placed Arwyn in a bassinet he bought in advance, back when Marco and Arlene planned for the future one day. Arwyn slept there peacefully, just beside Marco's bed. His breaths were soft like the occasional gust of wind you'd get on a sunny day.

Marco stared at the ceiling, and Arlene's journal was open on his chest. He flipped her journal to the last of her pages. She left a small, final note.

Final Entry: Name him Arwyn. After the stars we used to watch. I love you, Marco Delacroix.

Outside, the oak tree rustled. Somewhere, a star flickered.

Marco closed his eyes.

Hope. Revelation.