"I don't need it anymore."
Joel frowned, as if he hadn't expected me to give in so easily.
"Smart of you."
He wrapped his arm around Lillian and walked away without looking back.
Lillian turned her head and flashed me one last smile. A victor's smile.
I watched them go.
Then I turned to the doctor.
"Let's go. Take me to the operating room."
The doors slammed shut behind me.
Cold steel pushed inside.
Pain.
The kind that splits you open from the inside out.
I bit down and gripped the sheet until my knuckles ached, and I did not make a sound.
Tears slid from the corners of my eyes and disappeared into my hair.
Then a brutal, twisting cramp—and something tore free from deep inside me.
Five years of loving Joel Delgado, ripped out along with it.
The surgery lasted three hours.
When they wheeled me out, my face was the color of paper.
The doctor held my hand, eyes rimmed red.
"Miss Sullivan, it was a fully formed baby boy."
"Would you… like to see him?"
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
"Dispose of it."
Don't look. If I look, I won't be able to let go.
If I look, I won't have the strength left to leave.
I lay in the general observation room for two hours.