Chapter 1

The day I lost our baby, Bryce told me he was too busy to get away.

Two hours later, I saw him on another woman's Instagram, driving my car through a storm to pick her up at the airport.

In the photo, he was smiling like a hero who had arrived just in time.

I had just gone through a D&C alone. The paper hospital bracelet was still tight around my wrist, and I was still bleeding.

A few hours earlier, the doctor had moved the ultrasound wand over my abdomen for the third time.

The tiny shape on the screen still did not move.

"I'm so sorry," she said softly. "There's still no heartbeat."

That was supposed to be our baby.

Three months.

Three months of morning sickness. Three months of secret smiles. Three months of Bryce resting his palm against my stomach and whispering, "We made this little life together."

Now there was nothing.

"We need to remove the remaining pregnancy tissue," the doctor said, gentle but clinical. "We'll arrange a D&C. Is there someone who can drive you home?"

I nodded as I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely swipe the screen.

It rang four times before he answered.

"Bryce?" My voice cracked. "The baby... there's no heartbeat. I need surgery. Can you come?"

Silence met me for a moment.

Then he spoke, tense and distracted. I knew that tone all too well.

"Nadine, I'm buried right now. The data isn't ready, the presentation is tomorrow, and my advisor has been on me all day. I really can't leave."

"But..."

"It's a routine procedure, isn't it? Women have them all the time. You'll be fine. I'll make it up to you, okay? I promise."

The call ended.

I sat there in a thin paper gown, shivering as I stared at my phone.

The nurse looked away, as if she were embarrassed for me.

I went through the procedure alone.

The cold operating room. The faces hidden behind masks. The anesthesiologist asking me to count backward from ten.

When I woke in recovery, the woman in the next bed was crying softly while her husband stroked her hair.

I turned my face toward the wall.

Hours later, I was still bleeding and my lower abdomen was cramping in waves. I opened Instagram because I needed something, anything, to distract me.

That was when I saw the photo.

It was on Mara Sutter's Instagram Story.

She was a senior colleague in Bryce's lab.

In the picture, Bryce sat behind the wheel of our car, squinting through the rain beyond the windshield.

I had saved for two years to buy that car. It was registered in my name, and every monthly payment came out of my account.

The first time he test-drove it, he had grinned like a child. I could still see him clutching the keys and saying, "Nadine, I love you so much."

Now he was driving my car to pick up another woman.

Mara had added a caption.

"Stranded at the airport in a downpour, and I couldn't get a single cab. Thank goodness someone drove for hours to get me. Thank you for showing up when I needed you."

He had not been too busy to leave.

He had simply been too busy for me.

I stared at the photo until my screen went dark.

Then I saw my reflection in the black glass.

I barely recognized the woman looking back.

I did not sleep that night.

I sat on our bed. His side stayed cold and smooth, completely untouched.

One by one, I went through Mara's posts from the past several months.

Every late night when he claimed he was "running experiments."

Every weekend when he said he "had to be at the lab."

Every excuse I had made for him.

Then I found another photograph.

It had been taken at a lab party six months earlier.

Bryce and Mara were pressed close together in the group shot. His hand rested on the small of her back, and her head tilted toward his shoulder.

The caption read, "Lab partners. So lucky to have him."

I enlarged Bryce's face, then his smile.

I had not seen him smile at me that way in years.

Something inside me broke.

There was no crash. No screaming.

It simply snapped in silence, like a bone breaking deep underwater.

I opened my laptop and began to type.

Not a message to him.

A message to my attorney.

"Please draw up divorce papers for me."