On our wedding day, Liam and I folded fifty paper wishing stars each and sealed them inside a single glass jar. We made a pact to open it on our fifth anniversary. Today was that day. He texted earlier saying he was stuck in a late executive meeting and told me we’d celebrate as soon as he got home. But the waiting had worn down my patience. Sitting alone at the dining table, I unscrewed the metal lid and tipped out my half of the stars, unfolding them one by one. “I hope we celebrate every single anniversary side by side.” “I hope I remain first in his heart, always.” “I hope we grow old together.” A soft, foolish smile touched my lips as I reached for his stars. I flattened the first slip of pale blue paper. “Remember to pick up her almond latte every Wednesday afternoon.” I opened the second. “Remember her stomach is delicate; keep the food mild.” I opened the third. “Remember she’s terrified of thunder; stay with her through every storm.” My breath hitched. I am severely allergic to tree nuts—an almond latte would send me into anaphylactic shock. I love spice, practically drowning my meals in chili flakes, and he had never once asked if my stomach hurt. And in five years of marriage, whenever a thunderstorm rattled our windows, he would claim an urgent corporate crisis and leave me alone in our dark, cavernous apartment. My hands began to shake as I tore through the rest. Fifty paper stars. Not one contained my name. Almond lattes. A fragile stomach. A paralyzing fear of thunder. Every single note pointed straight toward my best friend, Natalie. The deadbolt clicked. Liam pushed the door open, carrying a bakery box with an easy, tired smile. “Happy fifth anniversary, Leah…” His voice trailed off. He froze at the sight of the dining table covered in flattened slips of paper. I lifted my head from the sea of blue strips. “Your wishes. Let me help you fulfill them.” My voice was quiet, hollowed out of all warmth. “Go find her.” … The faint smile on Liam’s face dissolved, edge by edge. He set the cake box onto the edge of the table and immediately reached out, sweeping his palms across the wood to gather the unfolded strips. “Leah, don’t touch these.” My hand came down firmly over one of the half-opened stars. “Why shouldn’t I?” I looked directly into his eyes. “Because none of them are about me? Or because I finally figured it out?” His fingertips hovered in the air between us. A second later, he deftly slipped the paper from beneath my palm. “These were written before we got married,” he said, keeping his voice carefully measured. “That was five years ago.” “If it was in the past, why are you still checking every item off this list today?” Liam looked down, aligning the edges of the blue paper strips with meticulous precision. His composure returned, that familiar, impenetrable shield of executive calm. “Back in college, when the four of us went on that field survey in the mountains, we got caught in a landslide. Natalie’s brother, Sean, shoved me out of the way of falling rock and shattered two of his ribs. You were at the clinic with us; you remember.” Of course I remembered. Back then, the four of us—me, Liam, Natalie, and her older brother, Sean—had been inseparable. Sean later took a long-term post overseas with an engineering firm. Before boarding his flight, he pulled Liam aside and begged him to look after his little sister. “Natalie’s had a panic disorder around storms ever since,” Liam said softly. “And her chronic gastritis started during that hospital stay. Every Wednesday she goes in for her outpatient checkup; I just happen to grab her a coffee on my way back. That’s all it is.” “So for five years, leaving me alone on every stormy night just to sit by her bed—that was only ‘looking after’ her?” “Yes.” He didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. “You’ve known Natalie just as long as I have. You know what she’s been through. Sean saved my life, and he isn’t here to protect her. Is there really something wrong with me looking out for his sister?” He paused, a sharp note of impatience slipping through his polished demeanor. “Leah, you’re supposed to be her friend too. Why do you insist on turning this into something sordid?” I watched him cradle the fifty crumpled pieces of paper in his hands, and an empty, bitter laugh escaped my throat. “Then why did you put the promises you made to her inside “our” wedding jar?” A furrow finally appeared between Liam’s brows. “I just grabbed whatever spare paper was on the desk that night.” “The night before our wedding, you sat right beside me on the floor,” I whispered, the memory burning behind my eyes. “You looked at me and said every star held our future.” “It was just something sweet to make you smile,” he said, sighing as if dealing with an unreasonable child. “Have you really been holding onto an offhand remark for five whole years?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he seemed to realize how callous they sounded. He reached out to rest a hand on my shoulder. “Leah, that’s not what I meant.” I leaned away, letting his hand drop into the empty air between us. Beneath the corner of the table runner sat my ultrasound scan. I had planned to wait until he unrolled the very last star to tell him our quiet miracle had finally happened—that after years of heartbreak, we were having a baby. Now, looking at the white slip of paper, the idea felt as humiliating as those promises of growing old together. Liam picked up the plastic knife from the cake box. “Let’s just have dessert. I had my assistant order your favorite.” He lifted the cardboard lid. The heavy, sweet scent of roasted almonds rushed out, filling the room. My fingers curled into tight fists. “This is what you call my favorite?” Liam glanced down at the custom bakery tag, his face stiffening slightly. “My assistant must have mixed up the orders.” He cleared his throat. “Natalie was at the office earlier; their orders probably got swapped.” He slammed the box shut, the irritation in his voice breaking through completely. “It’s just a cake, Leah. I’ll call a courier and get another one delivered right now.” “Don’t bother.” I slid my fingers beneath the table runner, pushing the ultrasound printout deeper into the dark seam of the wood. “Liam, I want a divorce.” His hands froze over the box. A beat passed, and then he tossed the plastic knife back onto the cardboard. “Over a few five-year-old notes?” “Over the fact that in five years of marriage, every single moment I thought you belonged to me, she was standing between us.” “Don’t make it sound so ugly,” Liam said, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “You are the woman I married. You are the one who shares my home and my name. Natalie has never tried to take that from you.” “So I should be grateful?” “At the very least, you shouldn’t use divorce as a threat on our anniversary just to test me.” A sudden, shrill ring cut through the tension. Liam glanced at the screen, saw the caller ID, and swiped to answer immediately. Natalie’s sobbing, breathless voice spilled through the speaker into the silent room. “Liam… the storm hit, and the power grid just blew on my street. It’s completely black in here…” “Don’t hang up,” Liam commanded gently, his voice shifting instantly into that protective, urgent register he never used with me. “Stay on the line. I’m coming over right now.” He grabbed his trench coat from the chair, casting a hurried glance in my direction. “Her panic attacks get severe. I need to check on her.” “What if I tell you not to go?” His fingers paused for a fraction of a second on his cufflinks. “Leah, don’t force me to think you’re being utterly unreasonable.” The front door pulled open. By the time the first low rumble of thunder vibrated through the floorboards, Liam had already stepped into the elevator. He had taken all fifty of those paper stars with him in his coat pocket. But he had completely failed to notice the white corner of glossy paper poking out from beneath the linen runner. The bold black text printed across the top read clearly: “Intrauterine pregnancy, single live embryo, 7 weeks.” I picked up my phone and dialed my attorney. As the line connected, rapid, heavy footsteps echoed outside in the hallway again. Liam pushed the door open, breathless and flustered. “Where’s the spare key to Natalie’s place?” I pulled open the console drawer, lifted the brass key, and laid it flat in his open palm. “Keep it,” I said quietly. “She needs you far more often than I do anyway. It’s more convenient if you just hold onto it.” “I told you, it’s just the thunder.” “I know.” My utter lack of anger seemed to unsettle him more than screaming ever could. A dark shadow crossed his face. He reached out, his fingers closing around my wrist, his thumb pressing down right against the faint red scratch I’d gotten from the glass jar earlier. “Leah, if you have something to say, say it directly. Stop with the passive-aggressive routine.” “When I told you I wanted a divorce,” I asked, looking into his eyes, “was that not direct enough?” His grip tightened painfully. From the phone on the coffee table, my attorney’s voice drifted through the speaker. “Mrs. Lockwood? Are you still there?” Liam glanced at the glowing screen and reached over with his free hand, hanging up the call. “When you’re done throwing your tantrum, go to bed,” he said coldly. “We have the presentation for the Aldridge Theater restoration tomorrow morning.” “That’s “my” project.” “Which is why you can’t afford to let your personal hysteria interfere with your work.” He released my wrist and shoved the brass key into his pocket. “Don’t eat the cake. Nut allergies are serious. I’ll bring you something else when I get back.” The door clicked shut once more. He did not come home that night. … The next morning, by the time I arrived at the architecture firm, the boardroom doors were already closed. Projected onto the giant screen at the front of the room were the structural restoration schematics I had spent two agonizing years drafting. But standing at the podium, clicking through the slides, was Natalie. When she spotted me stepping through the doorway, her voice faltered. Liam sat at the head of the conference table. Without looking up from his tablet, he said flatly, “Continue.” Natalie recovered, offering the room a radiant, polished smile. “The core philosophy behind restoring the Aldridge Theater isn’t demolition and rebuilding, but resurrecting the historic timber frame from its original structural blueprints—a design ethos I have championed since returning from my fellowship abroad.” A warm round of applause rippled through the executives and board members. I stood by the entrance, my voice slicing through the clapping. “Your design ethos?” Natalie immediately stepped down from the stage, her expression full of practiced innocence. “Leah, please don’t misunderstand. Liam mentioned you weren’t feeling well this morning, so he asked me to step in and pitch the slides for you.” “Then why is your name listed as the Lead Architect on the title block?” Her face went pale. She turned an appealing, helpless gaze toward Liam. Liam capped his fountain pen with a dull click. “The investment consortium prefers credentials from European conservation programs. Putting Natalie’s name as the lead gives the bid the best chance of securing funding.” “Those schematics belong to me.” “The project belongs to the firm.” “The foundational archival data inside those files belonged to my late father,” I said, my voice shaking with restrained fury. “That data does not belong to this firm.” Liam glanced at his watch. “You’re my wife, Leah. If Natalie wins the bid, the firm secures the contract. What difference does it make whose name is on the cover?” Natalie stepped closer, her tone dripping with gentle conciliation. “Leah, it’s just an administrative credit for now. Once the city approves the project and ground breaks, I’ll publicly clarify your role to the press.” “Clarify when? After you collect the preservation awards, or after the firm pays out the performance dividends?” Natalie’s eyes welled with immediate, glittering tears. Liam brought his pen down against the mahogany table with a sharp crack. “That’s enough.” “Natalie pulled strings with her network overseas to secure international consultants for this build,” he said, glaring at me. “She isn’t taking credit for nothing.” “So I’m supposed to thank her for stealing my life’s work?” “You’re supposed to conduct yourself like a professional instead of publicly humiliating her.” The boardroom fell dead silent. A sudden, bitter memory flashed through my mind: three years ago, when I first submitted the proposal to save the historic Aldridge Theater. Liam had dismissed it out of hand, shelving the project because the financial risk was too volatile. Yet three months after Natalie returned to the city, the very same project was fast-tracked as her grand debut. It was never that the project wasn’t worth the risk. It was that “I” wasn’t worth taking a risk for. A violent wave of nausea hit me from deep within my gut. I clamped a hand over my mouth and bolted for the executive restroom. Seconds later, the door swung open. Liam walked in, extending a paper cup of warm water. “Did you skip breakfast?” I refused to take it. Frowning, he reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a small piece of candied ginger, unwrapping it and placing it on the edge of the marble sink. “Take this to settle your stomach. Stop punishing your body.” I stared down at the little yellow sweet. For a single, pathetic second, the ice around my heart softened. Then Natalie appeared in the doorway, a soft, wistful chuckle leaving her lips. “Oh, Liam, you still keep those in your pocket?” She smiled warmly at me. “Back in college, I used to get so carsick during site visits, and Liam always kept candied ginger in his coat for me. Leah, do you get motion sickness too?” That tiny ember of warmth inside me died instantly, turning to ash. I picked up the ginger and dropped it into the wastebasket. Liam’s brow knit tight. “If you don’t want it, fine. There’s no need to be petty.” “You’re right,” I said, pulling a paper towel to dry my hands. “I shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to me. Not anymore.” I walked back into the boardroom. Before anyone could speak, I stepped up to the podium and yanked the HDMI cable straight out of the wall. The projector screen snapped to black. “This proposal is officially withdrawn,” I announced to the room. “The proprietary structural metrics in this file belong to my father’s private estate. Without my explicit, written authorization, anyone who uses them is committing copyright infringement.” Natalie gasped. “Liam… you promised I could lead this build.” I looked directly at her. “Then let Liam draw you a new set of blueprints from scratch.” Liam stood up, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register. “Leah. Reinstate the authorization by this afternoon.” “Never.” “Your father’s old conservation workshop sits directly inside the redevelopment zone for this project,” he said, buttoning his jacket with slow, deliberate precision. “Every day the project is delayed is a day the site demolition timeline moves up. If you want to protect the archives inside that building, I suggest you stop acting on impulse.” He slid a document across the polished surface toward me. It was an immediate notice of property clearance. The authorization line at the bottom bore a single, bold signature: “Liam Lockwood.” … By the time I reached my father’s old brick studio on the edge of the historic district, the eviction crew had already jimmied open the heavy oak door. “Stop! All of you, step back!” The foreman glanced uneasily at the site manager Liam had dispatched. “Mr. Lockwood ordered this building cleared out by five o’clock today, ma’am. Please don’t make this difficult for us.” I blocked the threshold with my body. “Every blueprint, model, and tool inside this workshop is private estate property. If anyone crosses this door, I am calling the police.” A sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb. Natalie stepped out, cradling the heavy glass star jar against her chest. “Leah,” she said softly, approaching the steps. “I told them to pause for a moment.” My eyes locked onto the glass in her arms. “Why do you have that?” “Liam came over to stay with me during the storm last night,” she said, her fingers lightly tracing the curved rim of the jar. Her smile was sickeningly sweet. “He brought it along. He said these notes were always meant for me anyway, and keeping them in your house would only cause more misunderstandings.” I held out an open hand. “Give it to me.” Natalie didn’t budge. “Leah, you’ve had him to yourself for five whole years. Can’t you just give me back what was ours to begin with?” “My father blew that glass jar by hand in his kiln,” I said, my voice trembling with rage. “It has nothing to do with those pathetic notes.” She clutched it closer, tears shimmering in her eyes. “But Liam gave it to me.” “Natalie.” Liam’s deep voice cut in from behind us. He walked up the stone steps, immediately unwinding his wool scarf and draping it gently around Natalie’s shoulders. “The wind is picking up. Go wait in the car.” I turned my gaze on him. “You know who made that jar.” “I’ll have an artisan commission an identical one for you,” he said dismissively. “My father made “one”. For me.” Liam fell silent for a beat, his tone softening slightly. “Natalie likes it. Just let her hold onto it for a few days.” “A few days.” Just like letting her put her name on my life’s work for “a few days.” Just like pushing back our anniversary dinner for “a few hours.” Just like leaving my bed to hold her hand through “a few storms.” Natalie turned to walk back to the idling sedan, but her heel caught on a thick industrial power cable snaking across the pavement. She stumbled forward. The glass jar slipped from her grip. I lunged forward instinctively, reaching out to catch my father’s memory. But Liam moved faster—throwing his arms around Natalie, pulling her back against his chest to steady her. The jar struck the concrete. The sharp, violent sound of shattering glass rang out like a gunshot in the alley. Shards and blue paper stars scattered across the rough stone. Natalie turned pale, trembling in his arms. “I’m so sorry… it was an accident…” I dropped to my knees on the cold ground, desperate, searching through the debris for the thick glass base where my father had etched my name. My fingers had barely grazed the edge when the heavy leather sole of Liam’s dress shoe stepped squarely down on top of it. “Don’t pick it up,” he commanded. “You’ll cut yourself.” “Move your foot.” “Let the clean-up crew sweep it.” “Liam, get your fucking foot off my father’s glass!” He frowned and stepped back. Beneath his sole, the etched base had been crushed into a spiderweb of fine, irreparable dust. I reached down to gather the largest remaining fragment, and the jagged edge sliced instantly into the pad of my thumb. Crimson blood welled up, dripping onto the concrete. Liam grabbed my wrist, pulling me up. “Is a broken piece of glass worth tearing your hands apart for?” “Yes,” I choked out, ripping my arm out of his grasp. “It is. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? You don’t remember how my father sat beside the kiln while his lungs were failing, carving my name into that glass so I would never feel alone.” Liam went rigid. Beside him, Natalie let out a quiet, trembling sob. “It’s all my fault… Leah, if you’re this upset, I’ll give the theater project back to you…” “You don’t need to give me anything,” I said, standing tall despite the trembling in my limbs. I grabbed the clearance notice from the manager’s clipboard and ripped it in half, letting the pieces flutter down onto the glass. “I will take everything back myself.” Liam stepped directly into my path, his face darkening. “The city signing ceremony is at two o’clock. You are required to attend as Natalie’s primary design consultant.” “You want me to stand on a stage, let her claim my work, and feed her the answers when the city council asks technical questions?” “It’s just a protocol appearance,” he said, lowering his voice so only I could hear. “She just got back to the country. She needs this momentum to establish herself. You already have me, Leah. You don’t need to compete with her for every little thing.” A sudden, sharp cramp seized my lower abdomen. A dull, heavy ache blossomed deep in my pelvis. I grabbed the doorframe of the workshop, cold sweat beading on my forehead. Liam saw me sway and reached out to catch my elbow, but a few feet away, Natalie suddenly pressed a hand to her chest, gasping for air. “Liam… I can’t… I can’t breathe…” His hands froze. Without another look at me, he pushed past my shoulder and scooped Natalie into his arms, rushing her toward the town car. Before the door slammed shut, he shouted to the project manager: “Escort my wife to the municipal hall. Make sure she stays until the contracts are finalized.” I leaned against the brick wall, pulling out my phone. A notification from my clinic flashed on the screen: “Follow-up reminder: Subchorionic hematoma detected. Strict bed rest required.” I dialed Liam’s cell. He answered on the second ring. “Natalie is having an asthma flare-up,” he said quickly over the hum of the engine. “I’m taking her to urgent care.” “Liam, I need to go to the hospital too.” “Your stomach is just acting up from stress. We’ll handle it after the signing.” “What if it isn’t my stomach?” Silence hung on the line for a single heartbeat. Then Natalie’s shallow, ragged wheezing echoed through the receiver. Liam murmured a string of low, soothing comforts to her before speaking back into the mic. “Leah, stop trying to compete with a medical emergency.” The line went dead. The project manager opened the sedan door for me. “Mrs. Lockwood, Mr. Lockwood made it very clear. Even if we have to carry you, you have to be in that auditorium.” I looked down at the hem of my cream skirt. A bright, terrifying drop of scarlet had just soaked through the fabric, dripping silently onto the pavement below. … Before the signing ceremony began, I locked myself inside a stall in the venue’s marble restroom. The bleeding had slowed, but a rhythmic, tightening pressure gripped my abdomen. I called my OB-GYN’s emergency line; the moment the nurse heard my symptoms, she ordered me to get to an emergency room immediately. Outside the door, the project manager knocked. “Mrs. Lockwood, the city commissioners have taken their seats.” I gripped the stall door. “Call Liam. Tell him I am about to lose our baby.” The manager’s face drained of color. He scrambled to dial his phone. After a brief, frantic murmur, he held the device out to me. Liam’s voice came through the line, cold and sharp as a scalpel. “Since when did you start fabricating lies about a child?” “Liam—” “Natalie just got out of the ER, and this municipal contract is the biggest acquisition our firm has had this year. Finish the presentation. I will have the driver take you for a checkup the second the pens are down.” “I am bleeding right now. I need to leave.” “Leah, don’t force me to humiliate you in front of the investors.” His voice turned bitter, saturated with exasperation. “The fertility specialist told us three years ago that your chances of conceiving naturally were nearly zero. We spent years tracking cycles and crying over negative tests, and nothing ever happened. Now, on the exact afternoon Natalie is signing her career-defining contract, you magically claim you’re pregnant and hemorrhaging? Do you really expect me to believe that?” My blood ran completely cold. During those grueling years of trying, every time my cycle was a few days late, he had looked at me with such fierce, desperate hope. He had assembled the crib in the spare bedroom with his own hands. When the tests kept coming back blank, he had stopped believing in miracles to protect himself from the heartbreak. I just never imagined that when our miracle finally arrived, his first instinct would be to accuse me of lying. “Liam… you really think I would use a child as a pawn just to win your attention?” “I am telling you to separate your personal drama from this business.” “Fine,” I whispered, the last piece of my heart crumbling into dust. “This is the very last time.” I hung up, adjusted my blazer, and walked out into the blinding lights of the auditorium. Natalie had already changed into an elegant silk dress. Pale and fragile, she sat right beside Liam at the head table. When the lead city commissioner asked for the exact load-bearing calculations for the historic oak rafters, Natalie’s lips parted, but nothing came out. The entire room turned to look at me. Liam picked up the microphone and slid it toward my place setting. “Leah, explain the structural load tolerances for Natalie.” I didn’t touch the mic. “This is not my project,” I said, my voice projecting clearly through the hall. “I have no legal authority to answer on behalf of this design.” Natalie’s eyes went rimmed in red. “Leah, I know you hold a grudge against me, but this restoration represents the hard work of hundreds of employees at this firm…” I looked out across the rows of press and city officials. “The structural calculations and historical restoration frameworks were completed solely and independently by me. Natalie did not draft a single core schematic in that portfolio.” A collective murmur erupted across the auditorium. Flashes began to fire. Liam reached across the table, his fingers digging bruisingly into my forearm. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Apologize to Natalie right now.” “She put her name on my intellectual property and shattered my father’s memory,” I said, meeting his furious gaze. “Why on earth would I apologize to a thief?” Natalie suddenly pushed back her chair and stood up, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Fine! I’m not as brilliant as you!” she cried, her voice carrying over the murmuring crowd. “But if I hadn’t walked away from our engagement five years ago, you never would have become his wife in the first place!” The entire room seemed to suck in its breath. Liam’s voice cut through the air like a whip. “Natalie! Shut up!” “Why should I?” she wept, looking at him. “Tell her the truth, Liam! Those wishing stars you folded—you made them at “our” engagement party! You told me we’d open them together on our fifth anniversary! If I hadn’t panicked and fled to Europe, would you have ever turned around and married her?” A terrifying stillness settled in my chest. I turned my head slowly to look at Liam. “Is that true?” His grip remained on my arm, but the strength slowly drained from his fingers. “Leah… what happened five years ago doesn’t matter now.” “The wishing jar at our wedding,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Was it made for her?” “Leah, we will talk about this at home.” “Answer me.” Liam closed his eyes for a long, agonizing second. “Yes.” The word was barely a breath, but it shattered the world around me. And in that exact instant, a violent, tearing agony ripped through my lower abdomen. I doubled over, gasping, as a rush of thick, hot blood soaked through my skirt, pooling onto the stage beneath my heels. Someone in the front row screamed. Liam’s eyes flew open, his face draining of all color. He lunged forward, reaching out to catch me. “Liam!” Behind him, Natalie clutched her throat, collapsing against the mahogany chairs, gasping for air in a dramatic, violent panic. “I… I can’t… breathe…” Liam froze mid-motion, caught between the two of us. I clutched a handful of his sleeve with my blood-stained fingers. “Liam… please. Take me to the hospital.” He looked at the dark red spreading across my skirt, and then his eyes darted back to Natalie convulsing on the carpet. “The driver is downstairs,” he said, his voice shaking. He pulled my fingers off his sleeve and thrust me toward the project manager. “Take her! Natalie has severe asthma—if she goes into respiratory arrest, it will kill her in minutes!” He turned his back on me, scooping Natalie into his arms, and ran toward the side exit. By the time the manager hauled me into the back of the car, the world was spinning into darkness. The driver blew through three red lights, tires screeching outside the trauma center. The triage doctor took one look at the ultrasound monitor, his expression grim. “Fetal heart tones are extremely faint. There is severe placental abruption. We need to perform an emergency surgical intervention right now.” A nurse thrust a consent clipboard into my trembling hands. “Where is the father? We need next-of-kin authorization.” I looked at Liam’s contact on my screen. I dialed the first time. It rang until it went to voicemail. I dialed the second time. He disconnected the call. Before I could dial a third, a text notification popped up from Natalie’s number. It was a photo. Liam was sitting beside Natalie’s hospital bed, holding a warm takeout cup of an almond latte, his hand resting gently over hers. Below it, she had texted: “Leah, Liam told me to let you know: stop trying to terrorize him with fake pregnancies.” The doctor grabbed the clipboard. “Mrs. Lockwood, we are out of time. Sign it yourself.” I dragged the pen across the line, leaving a jagged signature. They wheeled the gurney under the blinding fluorescent lights of the operating room. A cold doppler probe pressed against my stomach. The faint, rhythmic flutter of a tiny heartbeat echoed twice over the monitor… and then flatlined into static. The surgeon pulled down his mask, his eyes heavy with sorrow. “I’m so sorry. The embryo couldn’t be saved.” The metal doors sealed shut. The cold rush of the anesthetic entered my IV, pulling me down into the dark. Three hours later, I opened my eyes in a sterile recovery room. My stomach felt hollow, an empty, aching void. On the bedside table sat a single blister pack of post-operative antibiotics. My phone screen illuminated in the dim light. Two text messages from Liam: “Which hospital did you go to? The driver said he couldn’t find you at the Downtown Medical Center.” A few minutes later, another: “Natalie is stable now. Text me when you see this, and I’ll come pick you up.” I didn’t type a word. I unlocked the screen and dialed my attorney’s private line. “Draft the divorce papers,” I whispered into the receiver. “And issue an immediate, formal revocation of the Aldridge Theater copyright to Liam Lockwood’s office.”
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