CHAPTER 1 – The Last Ride
People in the shopping center parking lot barely looked twice.
An old man sat silently in a worn-out wheelchair, his trembling hands resting on a faded blanket. His face carried the kind of exhaustion that only decades of heartbreak could carve.
Behind him stood a teenage boy, Ethan, no older than sixteen, pushing the wheelchair with desperate determination.
"Please... Grandpa, don't close your eyes," Ethan whispered, fighting back tears.
Cars rolled past.
Families laughed as they loaded groceries.
No one noticed the boy begging his grandfather to stay awake.
Three months earlier, Ethan had been living a normal life. His parents had promised to visit every weekend after placing Grandpa Walter in a nursing home.
They never came.
The phone stopped ringing.
Bills stopped being paid.
Then one afternoon Ethan discovered the horrifying truth.
His parents hadn't just abandoned Walter...
They had secretly transferred every dollar from his bank account, sold his house, and disappeared overseas with the money.
The nursing home immediately expelled Walter when the payments stopped.
Sixteen-year-old Ethan had only two choices:
Leave his grandfather alone...
Or sacrifice everything.
He quit school.
Worked nights washing dishes.
Slept four hours a day.
Every penny he earned went toward medicine, food, and keeping Grandpa alive.
But cancer didn't care about love.
Neither did unpaid hospital bills.
Now, after another hospital rejected them because they couldn't afford treatment, Ethan pushed Walter across the endless parking lot, searching for somewhere safe to rest.
"I'm sorry, Grandpa," he said, his voice shaking. "I promised I'd save you..."
Walter slowly reached for the boy's face.
"No, son..."
His weak voice cracked.
"You already did."
Then he slipped something into Ethan's hoodie pocket.
It felt cold.
Heavy.
Metal.
"What is this?"
Walter smiled through tears.
"The one thing... your parents never found."
Before Ethan could ask another question...
May you like
Walter's eyes slowly closed.
And his breathing stopped.
