Se connecter[David's POV]"I want you to convince her to live,” Adam urged."And if she won't?" I countered."Then we find another way. But we can't let her die, David. Not like this. Not if we can stop it."The corridor fell quiet. Lily had gone silent, her expression shifting from theatrical concern to something sharper and more calculating as she watched us closely.I looked at Adam for a long time. Then I felt my fists unclenching, the tension in my shoulders shifting — not disappearing, but redirecting, turning from violence toward something more dangerous."Fine," I said. "You're a bastard. And I'll work with a bastard if it saves her life."---------I hadn't wanted to come to the hospital today.That was the thing that kept echoing in my mind as we stood in the corridor. My knuckles were throbbing; I could feel my heart hammering. The taste of shock and rage were still sharp on my tongue.I hadn't wanted to come to the hospital today. It was Lily's twelve-week scan. It was just a routine
[Adam's POV]The corridor smells like antiseptic and despair.I’m standing outside Alice’s hospital room with my back pressed against the wall. I can see her through the narrow window in the door. She’s asleep. She’s exhausted from all the tests, from the sheer effort of keeping a body alive that was determined to tear itself apart from the inside.Fifteen percent.That number echoes in my skull like a death knell. It means an eighty-five percent chance of a world without Alice in it. Fifteen percent means I would probably be standing at a graveside, instead of an altar. The dream I’ve carried for a decade — the church with the lilacs, her head on my chest, a life built from the rubble of our respective disasters — would evaporate like morning dew.But I have made a promise. “Okay. Together. We fight together.”I have pledged to lead the battle with her. To stand by her side, no matter what gets thrown our way.But how did you fight an enemy that also needs a lifeline? How do you wage
[Alice's POV]Lily was wearing a loose-fitting maternity dress. It was pale blue, cinched below the bust. The kind of dress designed to accommodate a growing belly without sacrificing style. And there was a belly. Small but visible, a gentle curve beneath the fabric that spoke of a pregnancy in its early stages. Three months, maybe. The first trimester just ending.She looked... well. That was the infuriating thing. She looked radiant. Glowing. The way pregnant women in advertisements always look. Serene and beautiful and utterly at peace with the life growing inside them. Her skin was clear, her hair was thick and shiny, her eyes were bright with a vitality that I, lying in a hospital bed with cancer eating my uterus, could not currently summon.Close behind her, with his hand on the small of her back, was David.He was saying something to her, something quiet and solicitous, the kind of intimate murmur that couples exchange in public spaces. His hand moved in small circles on her ba
[Alice's POV]I was moved to a room on the oncology ward. A private room. Dr. Ibanez arranged it, perhaps out of professional courtesy towards Adam. The room had a window overlooking the same Alpine view that had been in Adam's room when he was a patient here. The same mountains. The same snow. The same indifferent beauty of a world that did not care whether the people watching it lived or died.I was lying on the bed when Adam came back to the room. He had been making phone calls — to Endall, I assumed, or Camilla’s babysitter. Or maybe to Dr. Ibanez, demanding updates with the ferocity of a man who had been stripped of his medical authority and was compensating with sheer force of will.He sat in the chair beside my bed. Took my hand. Didn't speak."Adam?" I tried."Don't.""I need to know what you saw. On the scans. You saw something."His jaw tightened. His thumb kept moving across my knuckles. A small, repetitive motion, self-soothing, the physical equivalent of counting to ten.
[Alice's POV]"I won't let you die," Adam said. "Do you hear me? I will not let you die. I gave up everything for you — my name, my fortune, my career, my family. And I would do it again tomorrow, and every tomorrow after that. So, I am not going to stand in a hospital corridor and watch you choose a child you haven't met over a life we haven't lived. I can't. Alice, I can't!"His voice broke on the last word. Completely shattered, like glass on stone. The sound of this strong, stubborn, impossible man falling apart on the kitchen floor was worse than any diagnosis, worse even than anything the cancer could do to my body."Adam, you have to understand, I can't give up this baby.”"You're not giving up a baby. You're saving your life. You’re saving Camilla’s mother!”I took his face in my hands. Forced him to look at me."This baby, David's child, is the only good thing other than Camilla, that came out of my marriage. It’s the only piece of that past life that I still carry. And I kno
[Alice's POV]He smiled. That real, unguarded smile that I was learning to live for. "I've had a lot of practice at wanting to be somewhere," he said. "Now I actually am."A week passed. Then two. Adam drove his ride-share shifts in the morning and came home in the afternoon and did his physical therapy exercises in the living room while Camilla ‘supervised.’This meant that she sat on the balance board and refused to move, telling him he was ‘doing it wrong’ with the devastating honesty of a five-year-old. I cooked, or tried to. I read the journals Endall kept sending. I felt the baby grow — the kicks becoming stronger, more insistent, the rolling movements more defined, as if the child was already practicing for the marathon of existence.And I lost even more weight.It happened slowly, then all at once. The same way cancer always progresses. A gradual accumulation of small changes that suddenly coalesce into a reality that can no longer be ignored. My face became sharper, the cheek
[Alice’s POV]Adam’s car was a sleek, refined, dark gray Volvo. Just as he gave off the feeling of safe, steady, and possessing the right amount of restraint, so too did his car.The moment the door closed, the bothersome noise that had assailed me, those false compliments and malicious speculation
[Alice’s POV]Sirens cut through the dull night sky of Boston.David obviously didn’t expect Adam to actually call the police, much less that the police would arrive so quickly. When the alternating red and blue lights reflected off the body of his top of the range Rolls-Royce, the malevolence on h
[Alice’s POV]The police officer assigned to this complaint spoke to both men. “Regarding Mrs Newcombe’s movements from here, since this is not a case of injury arising from a domestic violence complaint, the Berkeley Police Department has no jurisdiction in determining her future decisions. She ha
[Alice's POV]At my reprimand, the whispered discussions around us abruptly stopped. The investors looked at Adam and I with a level of assessment in their eyes — they had already begun to understand that this doctor who was hailed as a genius, was not only a powerhouse in the laboratory, she was a







