With a soul-searching gaze, Tryson fixed his eyes on Angel, and for the first time in a long while, he truly saw her—not just the woman he once knew, but the one forged by pain and heartbreak.
It was as if every moment of her suffering had etched itself into her eyes, and he could no longer ignore the truth that haunted him: Her scars, the weight of her past, had been shaped by his own hands, by his own failure to be there when she needed him the most.
The knowledge that his absence had not only allowed her pain to fester but had worsened it with his reckless decisions was suffocating.
He could hardly breathe under the crushing weight of that realization.
If only I had been there. If only I hadn't let her slip through my fingers...
The guilt gnawed at him as he shifted his gaze downward, trying to escape the intensity of her stare, the raw vulnerability in her eyes.