At the first red light, she called her mom. “Gwen?” her mom’s voice said, wary but warm.
Gwen gripped the wheel, throat tight. “Mom, you know how you said you’d watch the kids anytime?” She swallowed, her voice catching. “Well…”
CHAPTER 29
Maggie
It feltlike they’d been in the emergency room forever. Time stretched and folded strangely in hospitals — plastic chairs, buzzing fluorescent lights, the faint smell of antiseptic and burnt coffee. Maggie shifted on the stiff bed, trying not to wince as the paper crinkled beneath her. Her ankle was propped up on a pillow, swollen and bruised so badly it looked like someone had swapped it for a prop from a zombie movie.
Maggie tried for a grin at Izzy, who was slumped in the corner chair, head tipped back against the wall. “You know,” she said lightly, “I jinxed it. Back in Vegas I thought the Maggie injury curse was broken. But no. Apparently the streak lives on. Fucking swan. Elitist jerk.”
Izzy cracked one eye open.
Maggie added, “I mean, at this point the universe just thinks I’m greedy for attention.”
That earned her a smile, but it was the tired kind — the one Izzy used when she was running on fumes.
“I’m the injured one but you look wrecked,” Maggie said, softer now.
Izzy rubbed her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’re slouching like a teenager. You never slouch.”
Izzy studied her for a beat, then sighed. “I’m worried about you, Mags.”
Maggie blinked. “Me?”
“You’re in the ER with an ankle the size of a softball,” Izzy said. “You’re making jokes, but I see you wincing. You’ve been hurting for a while.”
Maggie looked away, throat tight. “It’s just an ankle.”
Izzy leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “It’s not just an ankle. It’s everything. And now you’re talking divorce like it’s already stamped. What’s the rush?”
Maggie’s head snapped back toward her. “Rush? Izzy, I’ve been living in limbo for months. Years, if I’m honest. Calling it divorce is the first honest thing I’ve done in a long time.”
Izzy held her gaze. “So that’s it? No room for anything else? You just burn it down?”
Maggie let out a brittle laugh. “You think I didn’t try? That I didn’t twist myself in every direction to make it work? You weren’t there in our kitchen every night. You didn’t hear the silence. You didn’t feel how heavy it was just to breathe in the same room with her.”
Izzy’s voice was quieter now, but insistent. “I’m not saying it wasn’t hard. I’m asking why you have to slam the door before you’re sure.”
“Because waiting is worse,” Maggie said quickly. Her voice cracked anyway. “Because every time I see her, I still want her, and it kills me. And I can’t keep living in the in-between. It’s torture.”
Izzy studied her for a long beat. “So you do still love her.”
Maggie’s chest constricted. “Of course I do.”
Izzy leaned back, tipping her head against the wall again,exhaling like the fight had gone out of her. “Then I guess I just don’t understand how you let that go. I don’t care what happened — I know you two still love each other.”
Maggie blinked hard, eyes stinging, and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Her voice came out quiet but steady. “Sometimes that’s not enough.”
The words settled between them, heavy but final. Izzy didn’t argue. She just reached across the space and squeezed Maggie’s hand once, firm and warm, before letting her head tip back again.
Maggie let the touch linger, swallowing past the lump in her throat.
The curtain swished back before she could say anything more. A young doctor breezed in, clipboard in hand, her ponytail swinging. “All right, good news first — no fractures on the X-rays. Bad news”—she tilted her head at Maggie’s swollen ankle—“that’s one impressive sprain.”
Maggie let out a half laugh. “I don’t get a cast? Kinda feels like a rip-off.”
