Just sat there.
Not checking his phone.
Not looking at the door.
Just…there.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said finally.
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
And then he said, very quietly, “Because I want to.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Didn’t know how to respond.
So, I just nodded.
And he stayed.
We sat there in that sterile recovery room—him in the chair, me on the bed, the IV dripping slowly into my arm—and neither of us said anything.
But the silence wasn’t empty.
It was full.
Full of things we couldn’t name yet.
Things the contract didn’t account for.
Things that were already changing everything.
The nurse came back twenty minutes later and cleared me to leave. My vitals were stable, the cramping was manageable, and Dr. Beaumont had already left instructions for follow-up care. I signed the discharge papers with a hand that still felt disconnected from my body, like I was watching someone else move through the motions.
Amai stood when I did, his presence solid and grounding in a way I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“I’ll bring the car around,” he said.
I nodded, still groggy, still processing the fact that fourteen eggs had been pulled from my body while I was unconscious and now existed somewhere in this building without me.
By the time I made it to the clinic entrance—moving slow, one hand pressed against my lower abdomen—Amai was already there, driver’s side door open, waiting.
I stopped on the curb.
“Where’s your driver?” I asked.
“Sent him home.”
“Why?”
He looked at me like the answer should be obvious. “Because I’m taking you.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him he didn’t have to do that, that I could manage, that this wasn’t part of the contract.But my body was heavy and my mind was fogged, and the cramping made it hard to think past the next breath.
