Chapter 2 - Behind the Double DoorsThe recovery suite smelled faintly of warm milk, iron, and sweat. The lights were dimmed, casting long, eerie shadows across the tiled floor.
Emily lay propped up against a mountain of white pillows in bed three. Her face, usually so vibrant and sharp, looked paper-white, save for the dark, bruised circles carved deep beneath her eyes. Her blond hair was tangled across the sheets like spilled ink.
When the door clicked shut behind us, her head turned slowly toward the sound.
Her dry, cracked lips parted. "Beth."
Hearing my name on her tongue didn't feel like family; it felt like a trap springing shut. I stopped three feet from the edge of her bed, my arms tightly crossed over my chest as if to hold my breaking ribs together.
"You look terrible," I said. My voice was chillingly flat.
Emily winced, a tiny, pathetic sound escaping her throat. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, tracking straight down into her hairline. "I’m sorry," she whispered. "I am so, so sorry, Beth."
"Sorry doesn't cut it, Em," I fired back, stepping closer, the raw fury finally bubbling past the shock. "Five months? You hid this for five months? While I was sitting across from you at Thanksgiving dinner, stabbing my turkey like it had personally offended me because my womb was empty—you were sitting there eating pie with a baby growing inside you?"
"Beth, please," Emily sobbed, trying to push herself up, but a fresh wave of pain forced her back against the mattress with a sharp gasp.
"Don't move," Ryan urged, instantly stepping forward to adjust her blankets.
I watched his hands. Those hands that had held my wife-body for eight years were now tucking in sheets for my sister. A primal, dark wave of possessiveness and betrayal surged through my veins.
"Don't touch her," I snapped at Ryan.
Ryan froze, his hands hovering over the duvet. He looked up at me with eyes full of a grief that didn't belong to a brother-in-law. It was the look of a man carrying a heavy, terrible burden.
"Beth, listen to me," Emily wheezed, her chest heaving as she fought for breath. "Ryan didn't want to keep it from you. I begged him. I threatened him. I told him if he told you a single word, I would cut him out of my life, pack my bags, and disappear where you would never find me or the baby."
I stared at my sister. The little sister I had protected from schoolyard bullies, paid tuition for, and bailed out of apartment leases.
"Why?" I asked, my voice dropping to a trembling whisper. "Why keep it a secret from me? If you were in trouble, if you didn't have a partner—why didn't you come to your own sister?"
Emily looked away, her gaze fixing frantically on the sterile metal frame of the IV pole beside her bed.
"Because the baby isn't just mine to explain," Emily whispered.
The room went completely silent. Even the rhythmic hum of the heart monitor seemed to pause.
I looked from Emily to Ryan. Ryan was staring fixedly at the floor, his jaw locked so tight I thought the bone might snap.
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"What does that mean?" I asked, feeling the floorboards of my reality crack open beneath my feet. "Who is the father, Emily?"
Emily closed her eyes, tears spilling freely now. "That’s... that’s why Ryan was crying."
