جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 6

ESMERALDA'S POVThe ceiling tiles are water-stained. Sixteen of them. I've counted three times now, each number blurring through the haze of morphine and something darker, the kind of emptiness that no drug can touch.My hand drifts to my abdomen, expecting the swell that's been there for sixteen weeks. Expecting the flutter of life that had just started to feel real. My fingers meet only flatness, surgical tape, and the thick wadding of bandages beneath the thin hospital gown.Gone.The word sits in my chest like a stone."Mrs. Voss?" A nurse appears beside my bed, her face professionally sympathetic. "How are you feeling?"How am I feeling? The question is absurd. My baby is dead. My husband isn't here. I'm alone in a sterile room that smells like antiseptic and failure."Where's my husband?" My voice comes out cracked, barely recognizable.The nurse's eyes flicker with something…pity?before she adjusts my IV line. "I'm sure he'll be here soon. You just rest now. The surgery went we

ESMERALDA'S POVThe penthouse feels too quiet.A week has passed since the hospital. Seven days of recovering in our bedroom while Julian sleeps in his office. Seven days of cramping and bleeding and the hollowness that comes with losing something you didn't know you needed until it was gone.I stand at the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the city below. New York in November gray skies, people rushing, everyone with somewhere to be. Everyone except me."Esme?" Julian's voice from the doorway makes me flinch. "My mother's here."Of course she is. Celeste has been circling like a vulture all week, calling with "concern," sending care packages I haven't opened.I turn to find her already entering the room, immaculate in Chanel, her smile tight and practiced."Darling." She air-kisses near my cheeks, careful not to actually touch me. "How are you feeling?""I'm fine." The lie comes automatically now."Good, good." She settles onto the cream sofa like she owns it. Maybe she does, she c

ESMERALDA’S POVLila’s apartment feels too small for the mess inside my head.The moment Lila closes the door behind us, my body gives up.I don’t even make it to the couch. My bag slips from my shoulder and lands somewhere near the wall as I sink to the floor, my back pressed against the door like I’m holding something out. Or maybe holding myself together.The silence is thick here. No footsteps in another room. No phone buzzing on a counter. No reminder that I’m unwanted in my own home.I press my forehead to my knees and breathe. In. Out. Slow. Careful.Leaving didn’t feel dramatic. It felt necessary. Like staying one more night would have hollowed me out completely.I’ve been here since last night, curled up on her couch with a blanket I don’t remember pulling over myself. The city hums outside her windows, distant and uncaring, while I replay the same questions over and over again.How did we get here?When did my marriage turn into something so fragile?“You’re doing that thing