Chapter 8

     The exam room was colder than she remembered. Sterile. Quiet. The walls were white, but not kind. The kind of white that made her skin feel like a contrast.

     Monet sat on the padded table, legs dangling, fingers twisted tightly in the paper gown. The doctor had stepped out to let her change. She hadn't moved.

     Her purse was tucked beside her, still zipped shut, like she could somehow keep the outside world from seeping in.

     She could still hear Vivian's voice.

     "Not being able to grow your own is just a slap in the face."

     Monet blinked hard. Once. Twice. She hadn’t cried in front of her. She hadn't even cracked.

     But now, the room was too quiet, too clean, and full of everything she'd been afraid to admit to herself. This wasn't just a test. It had never been just a test. She had come here because deep down… she already knew.

    Her hands began to tremble. Just a little. Just enough.

        She covered her face with both palms, chest rising in short, shallow bursts. A sound caught in her throat—not a sob. Not quite. Just that sharp, painful breath that comes right before the crying starts and you're trying so hard not to fall apart.

     But she was falling.

     And no one saw it.

     A quiet gasp escaped her lips. Then another. Her shoulders started to shake, small at first, then stronger. Her breath hitched, shallow and broken. She bit down on a sob, pressing her palms harder against her eyes as if she could push the tears back into her skull.

      She couldn’t.

      They came anyway. Quiet, angry tears. The kind that burn because you’ve held them in too long. She didn’t want to cry in a paper gown. She didn’t want to cry here. But this room, this cold place, it had scraped her raw.

      And all she could do was sit there and unravel.

      She didn't know how long she sat there,   barely breathing, before the doctor returned with a soft knock and a practiced smile. Monet forced her voice to steady.

     “Sorry,” she whispered. “I'm ready.”

________

    Monet didn’t say much during the ride home.  He'd picked her up at a restaurant she'd wandered into after the test. She had lied easily—said she was tired, said she’d had wedding errands to run. Kyle had smiled, too preoccupied to dig.

     Now they sat in his living room, takeout containers half-empty on the coffee table. The TV murmured in the background, but neither of them was really watching.

     Kyle leaned against the cushions, his arm draped behind her shoulders. Monet stared at the wall.

    “You’re quiet,” he said after a while, nudging her playfully. “Too much bridal planning with the dragon lady?”

    She didn’t laugh.

    Kyle frowned. “Hey. Don’t let her get to you.”

     “She knew,” Monet said quietly.

     He blinked. “What?”

    “She knew about the fertility clinic.”

     Kyle turned toward her, blinking like it took   a second to register. “Wait. What fertility clinic?”

    Silence.

     Monet exhaled, still not meeting his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

      “No, wait—hold on. You went to a clinic?” His voice sharpened. “For what?”

     “To find out if something was wrong with me,” she replied, finally looking at him. “I didn’t want to scare you. Or... anyone.”

      His mouth opened. Then closed.

     “Why would you go alone?” he asked, like it offended him.

     “Because I’m the one who might be broken.”

    “Monet, don’t say that. You’re not—”

     “But I might be,” she snapped, more sharply than she intended. Then softer, “And she knew. Before you did.”

     Kyle fell silent. He looked like a man whose comfort bubble had just popped.

     “Well, I mean... my mom knows a lot of people. She probably just—”

     “Listened to the whispers I thought I kept locked in my chest?” she said bitterly. “Right.”

     He ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, can we not turn this into something it’s not?”

     That stung.

    Monet stood up slowly. “It already is something, Kyle.”

     He followed her with his eyes. “What are you saying?”

    She looked at him for a long time.

     “I don’t know yet.”

     But she did.

    Kyle stood too, but slowly. Like he wasn’t sure if he should try to hold her or just wait for the mood to pass.

     “You’re scaring me a little, Mo.”

     She gave a hollow laugh. “You think I’m scary?”

    “That’s not what I meant.”

    “No,” she said, hugging herself. “You meant ‘let’s move on and not make it deep.’ That’s what you always mean.”

     “Because everything doesn’t have to be this... heavy.”

       She looked at him then. Not angry. Not emotional. Just done trying to translate her pain into a language he understood.

     “You’re right,” she murmured. “Everything doesn’t have to be heavy.”

     Kyle took a step closer. “Then what do you want from me right now?”

     Monet met his eyes.

      “I want you to stop pretending like I’m someone you fully see.”

     That landed. He blinked, stunned into silence.

       “I’ve spent months shrinking myself so I wouldn’t make you uncomfortable,” she continued. “Holding my tongue. Smiling when I felt small. Taking heat from your mother and calling it ‘pre-wedding tension.’”

     “Monet—”

      “I went to that clinic because I needed to face something without noise. Without judgment. Without you telling me to calm down or not worry about it and your mother turned it into one more weapon in her arsenal against me.”

      He looked wounded. But it wasn’t the kind  of pain that made him grow—it was the kind that made him retreat.

     “I didn’t know you felt that way,” he said quietly.

    “I didn’t want you to,” she admitted.

      And that was the worst part. She had made herself easier for him.

    And in doing so, harder for herself.

     Kyle shoved his hands in his pockets. “So what now? I'll talk to my mom, that she has nothing to worry about.......”

       Monet scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. She didn’t answer right away. She picked up her purse and overnight bag, checked to make sure her phone and wallet were in there. The act was calm, but final.

      “I need a few days. I’m going back to  Elmsworth. The kids miss me, I promised I'd help coach the new nanny.”

      “You’re just going to leave?” He scrubbed his face with his hands, “Our wedding is barely four weeks away, don't run away.”

     She looked at him—really looked.

      “No, Kyle, I'm not running. I’m just going  to breathe.”

      As she walks out, the air feels different. Not free—not yet—but necessary. The truth still stings, and the future still scares her.

     But at least the silence is hers now.

_________

    The Next Afternoon.....

       The town car moved steadily up the highway, winding away from the city skyline and into the slow, sprawling quiet of upstate New York. Tall buildings gave way to trees. Traffic thinned. Everything softened.

      Monet sat in the back seat, her cheek  resting against the cool glass window. Her overnight bag was on the seat beside her. She was grateful she hadn’t packed much. Just enough to feel like this wasn’t a full escape—just distance.

     Kyle’s voice still echoed in her mind.

      "You’re just going to leave?"

       She hadn’t answered. Not really. But the truth had settled deep in her chest as she rode that elevator down from his apartment last night.

       She needed space to hear herself think again. Not just about the clinic. Not just about the test. About everything.

       The memory of Vivian’s words flickered too—cruel and glittering like the chandelier she’d sat beneath.

      "Not being able to grow your own is just... painful. A slap to the face."

     Monet exhaled softly, blinking out at the blur of green and gray. Her hand drifted to her stomach, almost reflexively.

        She didn’t know what the test results would say. But she knew something else—she couldn’t keep building her life around the comfort of people who didn’t care enough to hold space for her fear.

     The driver made a left, and soon the trees thinned to reveal the quiet charm of Elmsworth—the town she had only meant to visit once.

     Her phone buzzed with a message from Kyle;

     “I’m sorry. Please talk to me.

     She silenced it without opening it.

       As the car pulled up to the Abbott estate’s long gravel driveway, Monet finally sat up straighter. The house stood just ahead, wrapped in ivy and early summer stillness. The kind of stillness she used to mistake for loneliness—before she realized it sometimes felt like belonging.

      She didn’t know what the test results would say. But here, in this moment—arms open, feet planted—she felt like she wasn’t broken after all

       She pressed her hand to her chest once, grounding herself. Then reached for the door handle of the car. She'd barely had one foot on the ground when she heard Meredith and Carter calling her excitedly and their little eager footfalls pounding against the driveway as they raced down the long drive.

      Dropping her purse, overnight bag, and the little shopping bag of keepsakes she'd bought for them, she opened her arms, catching both of them in a big bear hug.

       It felt like coming home after a war. She knew deep down that she was home and for once she didn't let the never-ending turmoil in her head turn the moment to moot.

        She felt eyes on her, she raised her head to see the new nanny smile-forced smile-at the image she and the kids must've presented, but she knew another pair of eyes were trained on her.

       Instinctively, her eyes found Richard's office, she couldn't see him from her vantage point on the long winding driveway but she knew—felt his gaze—that he was watching her and the kids.

      She'd taken a week off but had only come back in three days and she wondered what he must be thinking about the situation.