Wanted to tell him he didn’t have to do that, but this was the second time he’d sent the driver home. I guess this was becoming our thing.
But my body was heavy, and my mind was fogged, and I didn’t have the energy to fight.
So, I just nodded and got in.
I slid into the seat.
He closed the door gently.
Walked around to the driver’s side.
Got in.
Started the engine.
And we drove.
Neither of us spoke.
The city passed by outside the window—familiar streets, familiar buildings, the same New Orleans I’d known my whole life.
But everything felt different now.
Because something had shifted.
In that recovery room.
In that moment when he’d saidmy child too.
The professional distance we’d been clinging to—the boundary the contract was supposed to maintain—had cracked.
And I didn’t think it could be repaired.
I glanced at him.
He was focused on the road, his hands steady on the wheel, his expression unreadable.
But I could feel it.
The weight of what had just happened.
The weight of what was coming.
I pressed my hand against my abdomen again.
Felt nothing.
But I knew it was there.
A cluster of cells.
A possibility.
A future neither of us had planned for.
And as we drove through the city in silence, I realized something that terrified me more than the procedure, more than the hormones, more than the possibility of failure:
I didn’t want this to be just a contract anymore.
