Chapter 4

At two in the morning, I woke to sharp pain tearing through my abdomen. I braced myself against the wall to sit up, my vision going dark in waves.

Sebastian wasn't home.

I hesitated for a few seconds before I dialed his number. It rang for a long time before he picked up. I could hear Victoria's voice in the background, crying, calling his name.

Sebastian's voice was tense.

"Rose, what's wrong?"

I leaned against the wall, barely able to breathe through the pain.

"Sebastian. I'm bleeding, a lot."

The line went quiet for a beat. Then Victoria's crying started up again on his end. Sebastian cut in immediately.

"Rose, get a cab to the hospital. Victoria burned her hand on a firework spark, and I can't leave right now."

My fingers curled slowly into a fist. So a single spark on the back of Victoria's hand mattered more than me bleeding through my clothes.

I asked quietly, "Sebastian, what if something actually happens to me?"

He let out an irritated breath.

"Don't talk like that. Can you not pick this exact moment to make a scene? Victoria's really in pain here. Just be a little more understanding, would you?"

Victoria's crying rose again on his end. Sebastian lowered his voice.

"I have to go. Text me once you're at the hospital."

The line went dead. The apartment fell silent again. I looked down at the blood on my palm and thought, almost calmly, that seven years of love had come down to this. Not worth another word.

I called an ambulance myself. The whole ride there, I kept pressing my hand against my stomach. The blood wouldn't stop.

At the worst of it, I actually thought, just for a second, that dying right there in the ambulance might not be so bad. At least I wouldn't have to admit that I'd wasted seven years on Sebastian.

At the hospital, a nurse rushed to help me.

"Any family with you?"

I was quiet for a few seconds, then shook my head. "No."

Saying it out loud didn't hurt the way I expected. It just felt empty, like something inside me had finally been scraped clean.

After the exam, the doctor's face was grim.

"We couldn't save the baby. There's serious bleeding from the miscarriage. If you'd come in any later, it could have been life-threatening." He paused awhile, then added, more gently, "Getting pregnant again in the future might be difficult."

I lay in the hospital bed, staring up at the harsh white light overhead. No tears came.

My phone buzzed. Victoria had posted to her feed.

In the photo, only a small patch on the back of her hand was red. Sebastian knelt in front of her, carefully applying ointment. The caption read: [So glad you were there when the sparks came down.]

Someone had commented underneath: [Sebastian's way too worried about this. That's not a burn, that's a woman surrounded by love.]

Victoria had replied with a shy little emoji. [He's just making a big deal out of nothing.]

I read that and laughed quietly. Making a big deal out of nothing. Funny how much that phrase depended on who it was about.

A small red mark on Victoria's hand, and Sebastian acted like the sky was falling. I'd bled through my clothes, and to him, I was just making a scene.

By the time the sky started to lighten, my IV had finally finished. I dragged myself home, exhausted.

The apartment was silent. The robot vacuum had run out of battery at some point, sitting there in the middle of the living room like a joke that had finally served its purpose.

I set my medical chart down on the dining table, the ring beside it. None of it mattered anymore. I had a flight in three hours. I was leaving, disappearing from Sebastian's world for good.

Sebastian didn't come home until midmorning, a bag of medicine in hand. He'd probably only just remembered that I'd told him last night I was bleeding badly.

He opened the door and saw the robot vacuum first, parked in the middle of the living room. Then the closet, half-empty. And finally, the ring and the medical chart on the table.

Sebastian went completely still. He picked up the chart, his eyes moving over the words.

Miscarriage.

Severe postoperative hemorrhage.

Reduced fertility going forward.