Chapter 3

　　Sabrina's POV

　　I woke up to a water stain on the hospital ceiling.

　　I had been staring at it for seven days.

　　The doctors called it a recovery. They used the word lucky. They said the emergency had been severe and I was fortunate to still be here.

　　Cole was asleep in the plastic chair beside my bed.

　　He had been there when the anesthesia wore off. He had argued with the nurses about the temperature of my room. The nurse who came for my vitals each morning had told me quietly that he was the one who gave blood when they needed it, because Leon's phone had been unreachable and they had run out of time.

　　I looked at him sleeping in that chair with his jaw rough with days of growth and his jacket folded under his head because there was no pillow, and the tightening in my chest was not romantic. It was simpler and more painful than that. It was the feeling of understanding what you should have had and what you actually had, and seeing the distance between them clearly for the first time.

　　Leon never came.

　　Not once. No call. No flowers. No knock on the door of the room where his wife was hooked to an IV in a bed that smelled like disinfectant.

　　Three days ago, an email had arrived. Not from Leon. From his personal assistant.

　　Subject: Divorce Documents.

　　Please find the attached. Do not return to the residence. Alimony will be processed upon signature.

　　He had evicted me by email. Through his assistant. While I was in a hospital bed.

　　My phone buzzed on the bedside table. Cole's name on the screen.

　　"I know you've been discharged," the text read. "Don't move. I'm coming to get you. You are not going back to that house."

　　He was right. I knew he was right.

　　I didn't reply. I gathered the few things I had, called my driver, and slipped out through the side exit before Cole could arrive.

　　The drive home blurred into pieces I couldn't hold onto. I rehearsed sentences the whole way. I prepared to beg if I needed to. I told myself that if Leon could just see me, actually see me, he might remember who he used to be before London and Zara and all of this.

　　When the car turned into the driveway, the words I had rehearsed fell apart.

　　Balloons.

　　Hundreds of them, tied to the wrought-iron gates and bobbing along the porch posts in pastel blue and soft pink. Soft jazz drifted from the open windows. Crystal chimed. Someone laughed.

　　A cold, frantic hope bloomed in me before I could stop it. Fragile and embarrassing and completely involuntary. Had he known I was discharged today? Was this for me?

　　I got out of the car.

　　I walked to the front door on legs that were still not entirely steady, smoothed my wrinkled dress, and pushed the heavy oak doors open.

　　"Leon, I—"

　　The room went quiet.

　　The living room was full. His family, our mutual friends, his colleagues. They turned toward the door. Then they turned away from the door.

　　Leon stood in the center of the room with his arm around Zara's waist. Zara, whose silk dress stretched over a swell that had not been there before I went to the hospital. His hand rested over hers on her stomach, his thumb moving slowly in small circles.

　　The banner behind them read: Welcome Baby Boy.

　　I stood in my own doorway in a dress I had slept in and looked at the celebration Leon had spent seven days of my hospitalization planning.

　　Every person in that room had sat at my table. Had eaten food I cooked. Had called me family.

　　Not one of them spoke.

　　Leon looked up. There was no guilt in his expression. Just irritation, clean and quick, the look of a man interrupted.

　　"What are you doing here?" he asked.

　　His mother lifted her glass to her lips and looked at a point somewhere past my shoulder.

　　"You knew I was discharged today," I said. My voice was smaller than I wanted it to be. "I was in the hospital. And you're doing this."

　　"I sent you an email," he said, his tone flattening. "You weren't supposed to come back. You're making a scene."

　　"A scene?" I took one step forward. "I just got out of a hospital bed. And you're throwing a baby shower for your mistress in my house?"

　　Zara pressed closer into his side. Leon's expression closed.

　　"It's not your house anymore," he said. "And Zara is not my mistress. She's the mother of my son. Which is something you evidently can't be."

　　It landed exactly where he aimed it.

　　He gestured to two of his cousins. They approached slowly, not meeting my eyes.

　　"Come on, Sabrina," one muttered. "Don't make this worse."

　　I looked around the room one last time. At the people who had been my family for seven years.

　　No one moved.

　　I turned and walked out before they could reach me. The door closed behind me with a hollow sound.

　　I stood on the curb outside the gate.

　　No bag. No car. No husband. No child.

　　I started walking. I didn't know where. Just away.

　　Tires screamed on the road ahead.

　　A black SUV cut sharply to the curb and the door flew open before the engine even cut. Cole stepped out. He didn't look worried. He looked furious.

　　He closed the distance in seconds.

　　"Sabrina."

　　"Let me go," I whispered.

　　"Why are you doing this to yourself?" His grip on my arm was firm and grounding and almost painful. "I told you to wait. I told you not to come here."

　　"I just wanted to see—"

　　"See what? That he doesn't care? That he replaced you?" He pulled me toward the car. "He threw you away, Sabrina. Stop going back to prove it."

　　"Stop—" I tried to pull free. He didn't let go.

　　"He doesn't deserve your loyalty," he said, low and tight. "And he doesn't deserve your tears."

　　He put me in the passenger seat and shut the door and got in beside me and pulled away from the curb without looking at me. The house shrank in the rearview mirror.

　　"You've bled for him for seven years," he said quietly. "Now you're going to learn what it feels like when someone bleeds for you."