Chapter 68

The hospital room smelled faintly of antiseptic and lemon; pale blue walls, a single window with blinds half drawn, a metal tray on a trolley, and the soft beep of monitors somewhere down the corridor. A plastic chair sat opposite the bed, and on it sat Adrian. Overhead lights made everything too clear, too clinical.

Vivian was in the bed, stripped of perfume and make-up, hair matted and mussed from the seizure and the rush to the ER. Her hospital gown rode up where her hand pressed uselessly at her belly; her face was raw and hollow, the bravado scrubbed away. Across from her, Adrian sat very still, the day’s casual ease gone. He stared at her as if he were trying to memorize the woman before him and decide if he recognized her at all.

Silence between them thickened, tight and taut, until it began to breathe out into something ugly.

Vivian could not meet his eyes. When she glanced at him, she forced her gaze away, shame and fear kept her chin down. She had done th