Chapter 3

I stared at the torn scraps on the floor, my fingertips trembling. "Accidentally? Since when does looking for a paintbrush leave a dozen slash marks on an ultrasound printout?

"Andrew, that was the last thing left of our baby."

Andrew was silent for a moment, his eyes turning cold and his lips pressed into a thin line. "Luna is your best friend. She's not herself right now."

He pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and said calmly, "You're an adult. Keep a level head."

I stared at his eyes behind the glasses and let out a cold laugh. "Keep my head? Don't use her condition as an excuse, Andrew. You get off on this sick little triangle."

Andrew's brow furrowed deeply, and a vein on the back of his hand twitched. "The only reason I'm patient with Luna is because of you."

His voice rose, tinged with impatience. "If it weren't for your sake, I wouldn't care about her."

I looked down at the shredded paper, a cramp tearing through my lower abdomen.

I lifted my head, my eyes turning colder with every second. "Cut the act. Everything from the moment she walked in to your little performance right now makes me sick."

Luna trembled behind Andrew.

She slowly edged out from behind him, tears still clinging to her lashes.

"You know the truth, don't you?" she said, the corner of her mouth lifting in a small, tight curve. "To Andrew, you're nothing but a patient now. He stays out of professional obligation. Nothing more."

*****

My body couldn't handle the strain after the termination. Around dawn, chills and a raging fever hit me.

I curled up on the bed in the master bedroom.

The door swung open. Andrew stood by the bed in silk pajamas.

He looked down at me. "You were way too aggressive with Luna today."

He started rehashing what happened earlier, his voice level, laced with judgment. "She knocked over the frame by accident. Did you really have to read that much malice into a sick woman's mistake?"

I was burning up, barely able to open my eyes. Through the haze of fever, I saw Andrew staring at me, watching me tremble. There wasn't a hint of softness in his eyes behind those gold-rimmed glasses.

He probably thought I was putting on a show.

I dug my fingers into the sheet until my knuckles went white, forcing down the coppery taste at the back of my throat.

I turned my head away, refusing to meet his eyes, my teeth chattering from the fever.

Andrew scoffed and jerked open the nightstand drawer.

The medicine box and its contents crashed together, making a rough, jarring noise.

Andrew asked, "Ivy, how long are you going to keep playing the victim?"

His phone lit up at the foot of the bed, and that special alert tone cut through the quiet, sharp and grating.

I glanced at it.

On the screen was a photo snapped from the edge of a rooftop, overlooking the city at night, with the words: [I can't hold on anymore.]

Andrew's hand suddenly stopped rifling through the medicine box, his breath hitching for a split second.

He tossed the pill bottle aside, grabbed his coat off the rack, and made for the door. "Luna's on the roof. I need to get her down."

He tossed over his shoulder without turning around. "It's just a fever. Take some pills and ride it out."

I opened my eyes, the 103-degree fever making the ceiling sway above me.

I watched Andrew's retreating figure. My husband was bolting out the door over a photo.

The door slammed shut. A blast of cold air hit my face and made me shudder.

A pain, more needle-like and unrelenting than what I felt during the termination, pierced my chest.

I'd just lost a fully formed baby and was fighting for my life.

Yet my survival meant less to Andrew than a midnight post from Luna.

The room was quiet. All I could hear was the second hand of the clock ticking.

I didn't cry. With every ounce of strength I had left, I reached for my phone by the pillow and dialed 911. "Hello? I just had a termination, and now I'm having a fever-induced seizure. My address is..."

After hanging up, I didn't look at the door.

Twenty minutes later, the paramedics pushed open the unlocked front door.

The ambulance reeked of harsh disinfectant.

Lying alone on the stretcher, I breathed in the icy oxygen from the mask over my face.

My phone buzzed a few times in my bag. Andrew's name flashed on the screen. I put it on silent.

The harsh white lights on the ambulance ceiling made my head spin, and the sirens wailed as we raced through the night.

The wheels of the stretcher rattled over the cold hospital tiles.

A nurse quietly asked if I wanted her to notify my family.

I shook my head. I knew that Andrew wasn't coming.