Chapter 1025 You’re the Girl I Love Most (Part 1)

• Chadwick Fullner stared blankly at Kate Penrose’s back long after she disappeared, only then snapping out of it. He couldn’t even name what was churning in his chest, just this faint, nagging ache. He forced himself to pull out of it and face reality. There were way too many problems waiting on him—how the hell was he going to fix Regal Peaks? The worry kept piling up. Instinct kicked in: he reached into his pocket for a cigarette to take the edge off. Came up empty. That’s when it hit him—ever since Madison Sawyer’s suicide hit the news, he’d been scared someone would twist it against him, so he’d quit cold turkey. He’d ripped up the rest out of rage and tossed them. He slumped back into the hospital room and realized he hadn’t left this tiny square of space for days. The face in the glass staring back felt like a stranger—no sunlight lately had bleached his skin pale, and the pressure and the depression left him looking wrecked and miserable.
• Chadwick Fullner pulled his gaze back and looked at Madison Sawyer lying on the bed. He gave a crooked smile. “When you wake up, are you not even gonna recognize me? Gonna ask, ‘Who’s this pretty boy?’ Why’s he got that funeral face?”
• “Tell me, Sawyer—are you happy in your dreams? If you’re happy there, freer than in the real world, then you can just keep sleeping. I’ll guard you. Getting far away from all the noise and pain out here… maybe that’s its own kind of blessing.” He stared at Madison Sawyer’s face, talking like a fool.