“You’re not fooling anyone, Lillian. I have no interest in getting to know you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t already read you like a book.”
He left, closing the door behind him.
“Asshole,” I muttered, storming across the hall to the room opposite his and slamming it with everything I had, the walls rattling in response, my breath heaving in frustration.
I looked around the room, at the bare bed, the blank walls. Everything was empty and sterile. But that sterility sparked something inside me—something I could fill, something I could claim as my own.
I didn’t even bother pretending to be thoughtful about it. I reached into my suitcase, grabbed the first clothes my hands found, and peeled myself out of the dress that had been suffocating me all day. Then, without letting myhusbandknow, I walked out of the apartment like a woman on a mission and headed straight to the store. Ten minutes later, I was clutching a single can of paint in the color I’d always loved but was never allowed to have.
Back in what was apparently now my home, I didn’t sleep. I popped open the can, dipped the brush, and started painting.It was messy and streaky and patchy, with drops spitting onto the floor, the sheets, even dotting the side lamp in a burst of guilty confetti. Each stroke of the brush was a rebellion against the colorless life around me, a reclamation of space, of control, ofme. By the time the city outside went still, my room had transformed: walls blazing with the bright, unrepentant hue of hot magenta I’d always wanted.
I slid down against the bed, arms streaked in pink like I’d been in a very glamorous accident, and just stared.
Maybe I didn’t get the swoony love story. Maybe there was no cinematic wedding, no charming prince, no dizzying sweep-me-off-my-feet moment. But this—this was mine.Permanent. Something real I’d made for myself with my own two paint-splattered hands, not borrowed from expectation.
And for the first time in years, I felt like I might actually belong somewhere—and it might belong a little bit to me, too.
Chapter Six
THE CAFETERIA VIBRATEDwith the periodic background noise of clattering trays, half-finished conversations, and the faint, metallic smell of coffee that had burnt hours ago. My hands still carried the faint tremor of adrenaline and the echo of the emergency C-section I’d just finished, as I scanned the crowd for Sarah.
Sarah had always been easy to spot in a room—her posture perfect, her hair pulled into an immaculate, slicked back ponytail that saidI’m capable, I’m in charge, and yes, I do own a steamer. She worked at the hospital now as one of the directors, which meant that she’d accomplished the art of walking into chaos and making it look like a carefully orchestrated production.
I wove through the tables until I saw her already seated, already halfway through her salad, and a second tray waiting in front of the empty seat across from her. Of course.
Our friendship had been like that from the beginning—wordless, instinctive, built on strange foundations that somehow made perfect sense. We’d met when we were six at Saturday school, two bored kids trapped in stiff clothes with even stiffer teachers. Every week, without ever talking about it, we’d sneak into one of the empty classrooms after class and wrestle with the giant pillows they stored in there. It was weird, and random, and not something we ever discussed outside those four walls. But for some reason, it worked.
Sliding into the seat, I smiled gratefully. “Hey, sorry I’m late. Thank you so much for the food, I’m starving.”
Sarah’s mouth curved into a knowing look. “Forget about the food. Give me all the details. How’s married life?”
I took a giant bite of my sandwich to buy time, chewing slowly. My brain scrambled for the right words because the truth was that married life was less “life” and more “proof of existence.” I hadn’t seen Khalifa since that night more than a month ago. He wasthere, somewhere in the loft, but the only evidence that he was real lived in the aftermath he tidied away. My dirty dishes disappeared from the sink. My clothes vanished from the floor and reappeared folded neatly on my bed. Even my laundry—the heap I’d abandoned in the corner of the laundry closet—came back clean and warm. He was like a ghost who not only haunted the apartment but cleaned it, too.
I swallowed, smiled, andlied. “It’s great. Amazing, actually. I’ve never felt more...whole.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes. “And?”
“And what?”
“Don’t be such a prude,” she said, her grin spiked with mischief. “How was your wedding night?”
The bite I’d just taken lodged in my throat, and I choked, grabbing my water and gulping it down as heat climbed my cheeks. My mind raced back through everything I’d learned in medical school—every awkward diagram, every lecture on the mechanics of reproduction that had once felt safely academic. And then, before all that, to the whispered girl talk during undergrad study sessions—half giggled, half scandalized conversations aboutlosing your v-card, confessed under the hum of the library lights that never once seemed relevant—until now, when I was about to weaponize them into a story.
It was ridiculous, really. I could deliver a baby blindfolded, I’d spent years explaining the female body to women twice myage—but sitting there, faced with that question, I felt like the world’s most overqualified virgin at a slumber party.
“Oh, it was...” I coughed. “He totally rocked my world.”
Sarah snickered, her eyes sparkling. “Did it hurt?”
The question hit harder than it should’ve. I thought of that night, of his scoff, of his rejection harsh against my skin:Not in the slightest.
“Yeah,” I said. “It did.”
Sarah sighed dreamily. “That’s how you know it’s real.”
I nipped the inside of my cheek.
“So,” she continued, twirling her fork, “how often do you guys...you know?”
