Chapter 173

Kelly POV

I couldn’t move.

The phone still lay where I had dropped it on the couch, screen dark now, like it had already moved on from the conversation that had shattered everything inside me.

Anderson had cancer.

The words kept circling in my head, repeating themselves over and over again, but they didn’t settle into anything that felt real. They stayed suspended, like something my mind was refusing to fully accept. Because it couldn’t be real. It didn’t make sense in a world where things were supposed to stay in their places, where people didn’t just drop news like that and expect life to continue normally afterward.

He was lying.

He had to be lying.

Right?

I pushed myself up suddenly, pacing the living room without direction, my steps uneven as if my body couldn’t decide whether to stay still or run. My breathing felt too fast, too shallow, like I was chasing thoughts I couldn’t catch and didn’t want to catch at the same time