I pressed my forehead against the wood, eyes burning, ribs heaving. Even now, my hands were shaking from everything I still felt, everything I wished I didn’t.
A few minutes passed, maybe more.
From the other side of the door, a knock came.
I didn’t answer.
Something rustled, a gentle scrape against the floorboards. “Eat something, Lillian. Please.”
I stared at the door like it might dissolve under the weight of my thoughts before sinking to the floor, knees drawn to my chest.
I hated him for still caring. And I hated myself for wishing he’d said anything else but that.
Chapter Thirty-Two
BY THE TIME MORNINGfound me, it was out of spite. Then one morning turned into two, then seven, then weeks that blurred together so seamlessly I stopped counting them. My life had shrunk into a loop of muted repetitions, a kind of monotone autopilot that made even breathing feel rehearsed. I woke up exhausted, went to work exhausted, saw patients, delivered babies, removed uteruses and fibroids, came home, and did it all again.
Khalifa and I existed like ghosts haunting the same square footage. Sometimes I’d hear him moving around at dawn, his gentle footsteps in the kitchen, the faint scrape of dishes against marble. When I got up for work, there’d be breakfast and coffee waiting—perfectly brewed, perfectly timed, like clockwork—and lunch packed neatly beside it. When I got home, dinner appeared outside my door. He never said a word about it, never knocked, but somehow the plate was always warm.
And every night, I found a new reason to be angry about it—that he still cared enough to cook but not enough to express his stupid feelings. That he wouldn’t let me hate him cleanly.
To be fair, I started most of our fights. All it took was him existing too calmly or looking too collected, as if none of this touched him. As if I were the only one walking around with a bruise where my heart should’ve been.
But maybe that was the cruelest part—he still did everything right, as if love could live in actions even when it had been denied in words.
He tried to talk to me about that night a few more times, toexplain, and every time I shut him out because I was too much of a wimp to hear him reject me again. Or worse, to watch him actually agree with me. To take me up on my impulsive, half-panicked request for a divorce and make it real.
He’d said he would only end up hurting me, said it like it was a foregone conclusion, like gravity or taxes or heartbreak written into his DNA. But how could that possibly be true when he was the only person in my life who had never hurt me—not even a little bit? Not even at all?
Until now, that is.
I was in the break room, pretending to review patient charts while Kevin and Robert hovered near the coffee pot like caffeinated vultures. They were mid-argument about whether the vending machine sandwiches could be classified as “food”.
“I’m telling you,” Kevin said, stabbing the air with his stir stick, “they have the same shelf life as a Twinkie. That’s not food, that’s a science experiment.”
Robert rolled his eyes. “Says the guy who eats instant noodlesdry.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Kevin said, grinning. Then he turned to me. “Back me up, Dr. Overachiever. You wouldn’t put that stuff in your body, right?”
“I’ve eaten worse during night shifts,” I said without looking up. “I once had a granola bar from 2018. Pretty sure it bit back.”
Kevin laughed, triumphant. “See? Even Dr. T has standards.” Then, with that suspiciously casual tone he used whenever he was about to drop a bomb, he added, “Speaking of standards...you didn’t forget about the gala, did you?”
My head snapped up. “What gala?”
Robert gasped theatrically. “Sheforgot.”
“The annual Miracle Mothers Charity Gala. You’re literally on the planning committee. There’s a photo of you in the brochure holding a baby like it’s an Oscar.”
“Oh,” I said flatly. “That gala.”
“Thatgala,” Kevin echoed, spinning my chair with his foot. “The one you not only organized, but also submitted a proposal for. Tomorrow. Seven o’clock. Black tie. Tiny appetizers. Rich people pretending they understand what an umbilical cord is.”
My head fell into my hands. “Right. The proposal.”
Robert leaned against the counter. “You’ve been a little...distracted lately.”
I looked up, scowling. “I havenotbeen distracted.”
