"Fine," I said automatically. The word tasted like cardboard. "Just tired."
She followed my gaze to the retreating couple, now turning the corner toward the maternity wing exit. Her expression shifted, perhaps with the particular understanding of someone who knew my history without me having to explain it.
"Char..."
"I'm fine," I repeated, more firmly this time. "Really. Just a long day."
She didn't push. That was the thing about Sarah. She knew when to back off. She just nodded, squeezed my arm once, and said, "Call me if you need anything. I mean it."
"I will."
I wouldn't. We both knew it. But the offer hung there anyway, a small kindness I filed away without knowing how to appreciate it.
I made it to my car in a hurry, and during the entire ride, all my mind could think about was the day that led me to this moment.
Seven months ago. My front door. The doorbell's chime still echoing in my ears.
Not Drew. A woman. Younger than me, maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine, with soft brown hair and wide, anxious eyes that couldn't quite meet mine. Her posture was stiff, defensive, but one hand rested low and protective over the unmistakable curve of her belly beneath her winter coat.
"You must be Charlotte," she'd said, her voice too high, too tight. "I'm Chloe. I work with Drew. I think... I think we need to talk."
The world warped around me, shifted. Rearranged itself into a shape I'd been refusing to see for months.
I'd called him. My voice came out calm, eerily, terrifyingly calm. "You need to come home. Now."
Twenty minutes. That's how long it took for my marriage to officially end. He walked through the door, his face the color of ash, and he didn't look at Chloe. He looked at me.
And in his eyes, I didn't see conflict. I didn't see struggle or uncertainty or even guilt.
I saw resignation. The choice had already been made.
"I'm so sorry, Charlotte," he'd started, the words hollow as a script he'd rehearsed.
"How far along?" I'd interrupted, my gaze locked on that protective hand.
"Four months," Chloe whispered.
Four months.
Four months, while I'd been injecting hormones that left bruises on my thighs. Four months while we'd stared at another single, cruel pink line on a plastic stick. Four months, while I'd blamed my body, my stress levels, my age, my timing… everything except the man who'd already found someone else to give him what I couldn't.
Seven years. Seven years of scheduled intimacy that felt like a medical procedure. Of hormone shots and fertility specialists and two-week waits that stretched like suspended grief. Of hope curdling into desperation, and desperation cooling into quiet, shared despair.
All of it ending on my doorstep in ten minutes, because Drew chose the clear, simple path to fatherhood over the complicated wreckage of us.
"I never meant for this to happen," he'd said, which was what people always said when they meant: I didn't mean to get caught.
"But it did happen," I'd replied. "And you’ve clearly chosen her."
He hadn't denied it. That was almost the worst part. He hadn't even tried to fight for us.
"She's pregnant, Charlotte. I can't just?—"
"I know." My voice had been so steady. So calm. Like I was delivering a diagnosis to a patient instead of watching my marriage flatline. "I know you can't."
What I meant was: I know you won't. I know I was never worth the fight.
Almost a year has passed since that day. The sight of a newborn should bring joy; instead, all I see is this. I sat in the car for a full three minutes staring at nothing, then finally dragged myself inside.
