?Chapter 1089:


    She clutched the bouquet of flowers she’d bought for him and pushed open the door to his room.


    Rickey looked worse than she’d imagined.


    The night of the ident, she’d implored him not to drive drunk, but he’d brushed her off with casual indifference.


    She’d sensed impending disaster, and sure enough, she’d discovered his vehicle crumpled on the shoulder of the deserted road.


    Later, she had witnessed him being hoisted onto a stretcher in the ring lights of the evening traffic report.


    She regretted it profoundly. Had she anticipated the severity of his condition, she would’ve apanied him, even if it meant endangering her own safety.


    “Rickey,” she called out.


    He turned his head, surprise flickering across his features. “What are you doing here?”


    “I came to see you. Are you okay?”


    Rickey gestured to his cast-encased leg with a grimace. “What do you think?”


    Emma set the flowers down and nced around awkwardly at the sterile room. “Is there anything I can do to help?”


    “No,” Rickey said tly. “You’ve seen me. You can go now.”


    Her heart sank like a stone, but she forced herself to ask, “Is Aurora staying here for good?”


    “Maybe.”


    Emma let out a bitterugh that echoed in the quiet room. “Then I guess I really am just in the way.”


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    Rickey regarded her with an unreadable expression, his eyes revealing nothing of his inner thoughts. “Emma, let’s be real. We were never more than a convenience for each other. You were just a stand-in for her. Now that she’s here, there’s no point in continuing this charade.”


    Emma clenched her fists until her nails carved crescent moons into her palms. “I get it.”


    Rickey offered no further exnation. With clinical detachment, he picked up his phone and transferred 100,000 dors to her ount.


    “Consider this the end of whatever we had. Take the money. I’ve already handled your tuition for the semester. From this moment on, we walk different paths.”


    Emma’s pride warred with practicality. The words “I don’t want your money” refused to form on her lips.


    She needed it—that harsh reality had drawn her into his orbit in the first ce.


    She always knew she wasn’t the kind of girl fate would allow to keep him.


    “Okay. Thank you,” she whispered, her voice trembling.


    She retreated from the room with her head held high, clinging to thest remnants of her dignity even as herposure crumbled.


    Tears gathered like storm clouds in her eyes, threatening to spill over. Finding refuge on a bench outside the hospital, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried desperately to excise every memory of Rickey from her heart.


    Suddenly, a man in a sleek ck trench coat lowered himself onto the bench beside her.


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