Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Stevie
My sister’s spare room still smells like lavender and old books.
It’s meant to be comforting. Soft yellow walls.
A bed that creaks when you sit on it. A faded quilt folded neatly at the end, like no one’s ever really disturbed it.
A framed photo of us as kids on the dresser, gap-toothed and sunburnt and so damn sure the world was going to be kind to us.
I sit on the edge of the mattress with my coat still on, keys clenched in my fist and feel like a fraud for thinking this would help.
I told Angel I needed space. What I really needed was somewhere I could fall apart without watching it break him, too.
The second the door closed behind me, the control slipped.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just enough for the cracks to start spreading.
I drop my keys on the dresser and stare at my hands. They’re shaking; they have been since I left the house. Since I saw the look on Angel’s face when I walked out, hurt, fear, and something that looked dangerously close to giving up.
That look is going to haunt me. I press my palms into my thighs, grounding myself.
You’re fine.
You’re doing the right thing.
You just need a reset.
That’s what I tell myself. It doesn’t stick.
The room feels smaller than it used to. Like I’ve grown into someone who doesn’t quite fit in spaces that once held me easily. The bed dips slightly when I shift. The fan hums overhead. The house makes quiet settling noises like it’s breathing. I feel like I can’t.
My sister knocks once before pushing the door open. She doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t look at me like I’m something fragile that might shatter if she breathes wrong. She just walks in with two mugs of tea and sets one beside me like she knows I won’t move to get it myself.
“You hungry?” she asks gently.
I shake my head.
“You tired?”
I shrug.
She sighs, sits beside me, and waits. That’s worse than any interrogation. Silence stretches between us. Heavy, patient. Like she knows if she gives me enough room, I’ll fill it.
“I left,” I say finally.
My voice sounds small in this room. Younger than I am.
She nods. “I figured.”
“He thinks I’m obsessed.”
She winces slightly. Not in disagreement. In recognition.
“Are you?” she asks softly.
I open my mouth to argue. To defend myself with charts, logic, science, and proof that doing something is better than doing nothing. Nothing comes out. Because if I strip it back far enough, beyond the data and the supplements and the temperature spikes, what’s left isn’t logic. It’s fear.
My sister reaches over and takes my hand.
“Stevie… when was the last time you let yourself grieve?”
“Grieve what?” I snap, sharper than I mean to. “It wasn’t even…"
I stop. Because that’s the lie, isn’t it? It was something. Every time. A flicker. A possibility. A life that started in whispers and ended before it ever got loud enough to be heard. Pretending it wasn’t doesn’t make it hurt less. It just makes it quieter.
“I don’t have time to fall apart,” I whisper. “If I stop, I’ll never start again.”
She squeezes my hand. “Or you’ll finally be able to breathe.”
I laugh hollowly. “Breathing doesn’t make babies.”
“No,” she agrees. “But suffocating won’t either.”
That hits harder than it should. That night, I lay in the spare bed staring at the ceiling fan. It ticks and whirs like it’s mocking me.
Angel’s text sits unopened for a long minute before I let myself look at it.
I love you.
That’s it. No pressure or fixing. No guilt. Just love. My throat tightens painfully. I flip onto my side and clutch the pillow to my chest as it might anchor me. I don’t reply. Not because I don’t love him. Because I don’t know how to explain the thing clawing at my ribs.
The terror that if I stop trying, I’ll have to face the possibility that this might never happen.
That might never happen the way I thought it would.
I reach for the thermometer on instinct.
Same time. Same method. I sit up in the dark and wait for the beep.
Log it. Tiny dip. My heart stutters. I scroll through forums until my eyes burn.
Anyone else feel like their partner just doesn’t get it?
How do you cope when everyone else gets their miracle, but you don’t?
I feel like my body is failing me.
I start typing a reply.
Yes. Every day. It feels like everyone’s moving forward, and I’m stuck in a loop.
I delete it. I don’t want advice. I want certainty, for someone to say, "Do this, and it will work." I want a guarantee. Instead, I get strangers sharing heartbreak and hope in equal measure. It makes me feel less alone. And more terrified.
Morning comes too fast. The house smells like toast and coffee. Normal. Domestic. Safe. I pad into the kitchen in yesterday’s clothes and automatically move toward the counter. Hot water over a teabag. Vitamins lined up. My sister watches quietly.
“You don’t have to do that here,” she says.
“I know.”
“But you’re going to.”
I nod. Because stopping feels like surrender. And I’m not ready for that. I swallow pill after pill. The taste coats my tongue. My sister leans against the counter.
“What happens if you skip one?” she asks casually.
“I don’t.”
“But what if you did?”
“I don’t,” I repeat, sharper now.
She studies me.
“You look exhausted.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not sleeping.”
“I’m tracking.”
She pushes off the counter and steps closer.
“Stevie.”
Something in her voice cracks the surface.
“Look at you.”
I don’t want to. But I do. My hands are trembling slightly. My shoulders are tight up near my ears, and my eyes feel hollow.
“I don’t recognize myself anymore,” I whisper.
And once it’s out, I can’t stop.
“Everything is numbers and rules and fear. I don’t know who I am if I’m not trying.”
The sob escapes before I can swallow it down. It rips through my chest like something breaking free. My sister pulls me into her arms, and this time I don’t resist.
I crumble. Hard. Ugly. Years of hope and disappointment pouring out of me in heaving breaths and shaking limbs.
“I can’t keep losing,” I choke. “I can’t keep getting excited just to bleed again.”
She strokes my hair.
“You’ve been carrying this alone.”
“I didn’t want to make it real.”
“It’s been real the whole time.”
“I’m scared,” I admit finally. “I’m scared it’ll never happen. That this is it. That I’m… defective.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me.
“You are not defective.”
“It feels like I am.”
“Feeling and truth aren’t the same thing.”
I press my forehead to her shoulder again.
“What if it never works?” I whisper.
She doesn’t rush to reassure me. Doesn’t promise miracles or tell me to just relax. She just holds me.
“And if it doesn’t,” she says carefully, “we’ll figure out how to live anyway.”
The words land like a punch. Living anyway.
That means accepting that some things are out of my control.
That I might not get the life I pictured, I might have to redefine what fulfilment looks like.
And that terrifies me more than another negative test ever has.
Because as long as I’m trying, I’m not grieving the possibility of never.
Trying keeps the door cracked open. Stopping feels like closing it.
And I don’t know if I’m strong enough for that yet.
Later that afternoon, my phone buzzes again.
Angel.
Please just tell me you’re safe.
My chest aches. I type back.
I’m safe. I just needed air.
The dots appear almost immediately.
Where are you? I’ll come get you.
I stare at the screen. Part of me wants to say yes. To let him fix it the way he fixes everything else, by showing up, by standing solid and unmovable. But another part of me knows this isn’t something he can fix for me. Not alone.
I need tonight.
I hesitate, then add.
I love you too.
I hit send before I can overthink it. My sister glances up from the couch.
“Him?”
I nod.
“You going back?”
“Not yet.”
She studies me for a moment.
“Do you want to?”
The question lingers. Do I want to go home? Yes.
Do I want to walk back into that house and face the look in his eyes? I don’t know.
“I don’t want to lose him,” I whisper.
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It never is.”
I sink back against the couch cushions and close my eyes. For the first time since the hospital, I let myself sit in it without reaching for a solution. Without opening an app, no counting days. Just grief. Raw and ugly and honest. It doesn’t kill me, it just hurts.
And somewhere in the middle of that hurt, I realize something I’ve been avoiding. I’ve been trying to outrun the pain by sprinting toward a future I can’t control. But maybe the only way through it… Is straight through. And that might be the scariest thing I’ve faced yet.