DON'T DOUBT LOVE) loving you no matter what

MAYA'S POV

Mum used to hide it—the way her hands shook when she lifted her teacup, the wet rattle in her chest when she thought we were asleep.

But after the betrayal? She stopped pretending.

I found her on the bathroom floor this morning, a scarlet streak on her lips where she'd wiped too fast.

"It's nothing," she said. Like always.

Except this time, her eyes didn't meet mine.

The doctor's words from last month haunted me: "Stress will kill her faster than the disease."

And what was betrayal, if not the ultimate stress?

AISHA'S POV

The pill bottles were empty.

I shook the last one over my palm—nothing. Mum's "mild condition" that suddenly needed three different medications.

"We'll get more tomorrow," Mum whispered, patting my hand.

But we both knew. The hospital had stopped credit weeks ago. The Nelson accounts were frozen.

Ryder caught me crying in the pharmacy aisle. "I'll fix this," he promised.

But his eyes said what we all knew—some things can't be fixed.

TAHIR'S POV

Fatima Hassan was supposed to be a means to an end.

Not this gaunt woman wheezing on the sofa, her once-sharp eyes now glassy with pain.

"You look terrible," I said, because acknowledging it felt better than silence.

She laughed—a wet, broken sound. "And you're still a terrible liar, Tahir."

The oxygen machine hissed between us.

I should've left. Should've cut ties.

Instead, I wrote a check to the private hospital.

She tore it in half without looking.

RYDER'S POV

The medical file wasn't meant for me.

Stage 4. Metastasized. 6 months, maybe less.

Aisha thought this was temporary. That if we just got enough money, her mum would bounce back.

But the way Fatima clutched her ribs when she coughed? The way her tea went cold because she forgot to drink it?

I'd seen this before. With my own mother.

Some storms you don't outrun. You just learn to stand in the rain.