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None of this does.

But something inside me—some ache stitched into my ribs—believes him.

Because how else do you explain the seams in the world coming undone?

How else do you explain a pregnancy that never added up? The moments that felt too perfect. The silence between heartbeats. The way the Garden dissolved like fog. The way Fletch is here but not here.

“How long?” I whisper.

His brows knit. “How long what?”

I lift a hand to my chest. I swear I can feel it now. The weight. The pull. The disconnect.

“How long have I been… gone?”

Fletch hesitates.

And in that silence, my stomach turns to lead.

“Fletch,” I plead, voice thick and aching. “How long have I been under?”

His shoulders sag.

“Eighty-four days.”

The number knocks the wind out of me. Like I’ve been sucker-punched by my own unconscious.

I press a palm to the center of my chest, trying to steady the swirl in my head.

“This whole time…” My voice is a whisper, brittle and breaking. “I’ve been in a coma?”

He nods once. Just once.

And I break a little.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. There’s no scream or sob or shattering glass. Just this quiet internal undoing—like thread being tugged from a hem until everything I’ve stitched together starts to unravel.

Eighty-four days.

Three months of my body lying still while my mind built a world made of borrowed light and soft lies.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper. My voice sounds far away. Warped. Like it’s coming from underwater.

“I know,” Fletch says, voice rough with regret. “Your brain’s trying to protect you. That’s what it does. It gives you something safe when the real world hurts too much to hold.”

My hands hover over my belly.

The bump is still there.

Full.

Firm.

Heavy.

“Are they—” I stop, throat constricting. “Are the babies… real?”

His eyes close like the question hurts him. “By some miracle, they survived.”