Chapter Forty-One
Three Months Later
LONELINESS WASN’T NEW to me. It had been stitched into my childhood, an invisible companion that learned to walk beside me long before I learned to be comfortable in its company.
Growing up with older brothers who treated me like an accidental accessory and a mother who never wanted a daughter meant I was raised inside a glass bubble of my own making.
Thin, clear, and impenetrable. I could see the world through it, but nothing could ever truly reach me.
I used to tell myself I preferred it that way—safe, self-contained, immaculate.
I convinced myself seclusion was a kind of strength.
But this—this was something else. This loneliness was heavier.
It sat in my chest like a brick, tugging me down with every breath.
It wasn’t the silent kind I’d grown up with, the kind that thrummed softly in the background.
This was loud and unrelenting. It carried his voice in its echo, his absence sewn into every corner of my day.
And the worst part—the cruelest part—was knowing why it hurt like this.
Because unlike living with my family, I’d finally had a taste of real love—of companionship, of feeling wanted and worthy and enough, of everything I claimed I didn’t need, everything I pretended I’d outgrown, when in reality I’d been starving for it.
And once you tasted something like that, going back to this kind of emptiness was so much more dreadful, so much more unbearable.
It made my old loneliness feel almost quaint, like something from a different lifetime.
But even that hurt brought its own delicate sweetness—proof of being loved, of loving someone so impossibly deeply.
Khalifa respected my wishes. He left when I asked him to, stayed gone, even when I secretly wanted him not to. He had threaded himself through every thought, every memory, every crevice, corner, and fold of my brain, until trying to erase him felt like erasing myself.
I hadn’t seen him in three months, but his love lingered like sunlight in an empty room. It was everywhere—subtle, patient, impossible to ignore.
Every morning, a new bouquet waited on my office desk. Not extravagant ones—he knew I’d see through that—but small, careful arrangements. Lavender on Mondays, tulips on Thursdays. There was never a note, but I knew they were from him.
Breakfast arrived at my door before I woke.
Smoothies, pastries, sometimes the exact omelet I used to pretend I didn’t like just to hear him insist I did.
Dinner came at night, warm and perfectly timed, as if he still knew my schedule by heart—because he did.
And because he also knew the only thing I could cook was pancakes—mushy in the middle, burnt on the outside, and permanently fused to the pan like an art installation on poor life choices.
Technically, it was his apartment. But he never tried to come back, never once crossed the invisible line I’d drawn. He loved me from a distance, and somehow that was both everything I’d asked for and exactly what was breaking me.
I kept discovering sticky notes hidden, ones I hadn’t noticed before.
They weren’t just the bossy commands he used to leave scattered around like reminders from a fussy professor—Eat this.
Drink water. Don’t stay up too late. Now there were softer ones tucked between the pages of my planner, in my closet, behind the bathroom mirror.
Notes that felt like tiny, stubborn love letters refusing to let go.
I love you. You’re my light. You’re beautiful.
You’re wanted. Little yellow ghosts of him, haunting me in the gentlest way possible.
And every evening, just as the sun began to fall, my phone would light up with a picture.
A sunset. Never the same one twice. Sometimes taken from wherever he was staying, sometimes from the university campus, sometimes from a place I couldn’t recognize.
No captions, no explanations, just that quiet exchange across this endless gap—his world turning gold.
Then, this morning, an envelope arrived.
Inside were the official divorce documents from Dalal—their signatures inked and permanent.
I stared at them for a long time, the weight of it all pressing against my chest. It should have comforted me, but the truth was, I was still angry.
Angry that he’d lied, that someone else had touched the pieces of himself I thought belonged to me, that he’d broken my heart and then somehow made it so damn hard to stop loving him.
Because each flower, each meal, each fading streak of orange sky was a reminder that love could exist even after everything else had fallen apart—that even when we tried to sever it cleanly, it found new ways to stay alive.
Every night, I’d crawl into his bed wearing his clothes and try to convince myself that I didn’t miss him, that the sheets no longer smelled like him, that my heart wasn’t waiting for the sound of his key in the door.
But love, I’d learned, didn’t listen to reason. It just stayed, patiently waiting for the moment I’d finally stop pretending that solitude was strength and admit that all I really wanted was him.
When I wasn’t wallowing in my own pathetic misery, I was throwing everything I had into getting my maternal wellness initiative off the ground—a project that had quickly mutated into The Tariq Postpartum Institute, complete with a tiny (but real) building, my name on the door, and enough paperwork to make me question every life choice I’d ever made.
We’d had a bigger turnout than I expected—dozens of women, some with tired smiles and others with tears they couldn’t hide.
Mothers who didn’t glow. Mothers who looked at their babies and wondered why joy hadn’t arrived with the epidural, who felt broken by it all, who didn’t instantly bond.
Mothers drowning under the weight of postpartum depression while the world expected them to smile.
Women who walked into motherhood full of hope and found themselves grieving the life they left behind.
Their hearts were full, but their hands trembled with doubt.
They loved their babies, but they felt lost, guilty, alone.
It made me equal parts happy and hollow. Happy that something I’d built was working, that maybe I was doing some good in a world that too often forgot about women once they became moms. And hollow, because the success was proof of just how many of them were hurting.
Still, it gave me purpose. It gave me something that wasn’t lying husbands, scorned ex-wives, angry best friends, or a mother who’d perfected the art of hating me with gentle consistency.
And somewhere in the middle of reminding them not to lose themselves, I realized I’d been quietly handing myself the same lifeline.
When medical schools called you in for an interview, the first question was always the same: Why do you want to be a doctor?
And although everyone’s answers were dressed up differently, they all orbited the same idea: I want to help people.
I want to save lives. I said it too—beautifully rehearsed, perfectly polished—but it wasn’t the truth.
I didn’t become a doctor out of selflessness.
I became one out of defiance. Out of spite.
Out of a deep, aching need to prove myself to a woman who’d spent her entire life making me feel unworthy of love and success.
And because of that, I couldn’t stop wondering whether the why behind my choice somehow contaminated the what I achieved.
If the origin of my ambition determined whether I belonged in the life it led me to.
But I was beginning to understand something that finally loosened the knot in my chest: Goodness could grow from imperfect motives.
The ending could redeem the beginning. The outcome of a choice could rewrite the reason we made it.
I didn’t choose medicine to help people, but helping people was the most meaningful thing I had ever done.
“Woohoo, Earth to Dr. T.”
Kevin’s voice cut through my thoughts like a pebble skimming the surface of a too-still lake. I blinked and looked up from the chart I hadn’t read a single word of. He stood in the doorway, arms full of bright color—another bouquet, and a ribboned box balanced on top.
“I come bearing another apology delivery,” he announced. “From he who must never be named.”
I sighed, holding out a hand. “Give me the chocolates. You can add the flowers to the ever-growing Garden of Regret over there.”
He set the blooms down beside their fallen comrades—roses, lilies, tulips, a tragic love story told entirely in petals—and handed me the box. “You do realize you have to water these, right?”
“Why bother?” I bit into a truffle. “Everything dies eventually. Flowers. Friendships. Marriages.”
Kevin whistled. “Yikes. I liked you better when you were throwing staplers.”
I popped another chocolate into my mouth. “You’re welcome to stay while I rediscover that version of myself.”
He plopped into the chair across from me. “Look, I know I’m just your underpaid minion and personal lunch-fetcher—happily, of course—but if you ever need to talk...”
“I only do girl talk with girls.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Cool, I can be a girl. Give me five minutes and a scrunchie.”
That made me laugh, reluctantly. After a lengthy minute of consideration, I asked, “Do you perceive me as someone who secretly wants to be alone?”
“No.”
“Do you perceive me as someone who doesn’t give people second chances?”
He hesitated, eyes darting to the emergency exit. “Yes. But if ‘no’ comes with job security, then absolutely not.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why yes?”
“Because you’re terrified of getting hurt. You think giving someone a second chance is like handing them a loaded gun and hoping they don’t aim it at you again. But that’s not how it works.”
My chest spasmed at his words, soft and unexpectedly sharp.
“I’ve known you for a few years,” he said.
“I mean—you hired me. From the moment we met, you were this brilliant, fun, unstoppable force of a woman—a free-spirited, badass doctor I couldn’t help but admire.
But there was always something...off. And it wasn’t until after you got married that I realized what it was.
You were carrying a sadness beneath it all, and I only noticed because it went away after. ..him.”
I averted my gaze, shoving my fingers into a half-hearted shuffle of papers.
“You’ve always held people at arm’s length,” he went on, “like if anyone ever saw the real you, they wouldn’t stick around.
But I think you found someone who finally does.
And yeah, he messed up, love isn’t perfect.
It’s admitting you messed up, learning from it, and trying to do better.
I don’t know what Mr. Handsome, Dark, and Emotionally Unavailable did, but the flowers, the food, the sunset pics—that’s him trying. ”
I stared at him for a moment, chocolate melting on my tongue, before murmuring, “Are you secretly running a marriage-counseling practice out of the storage closet, or is this a new hobby?”
He grinned. “Don’t tempt me. I might start charging for my psychological expertise.”
I leaned back in my chair, studying him. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
He paused mid-exit, turning toward me. “Do what?”
“This.” I gestured vaguely at the chocolates, the flowers, the heartbreak carnage. “You don’t have to be my minion, or emotional support receptionist, or whatever title you’ve taken on today. You can just come in, do your job, and leave. I’ll respect that.”
He blinked, like I’d just offered him a severance package he didn’t ask for. “Are you joking?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Yes,” he said immediately. “But I also know that’s just your resting deadpan face. So, for clarification purposes—no. You are not getting rid of me that easily.”
I sighed. “Kevin—”
He smirked, hands tucked into his pockets. “You’re my favorite part of the job, Dr. T. Why would I give up the daily thrill of watching you unravel in designer shoes?”
I rolled my eyes, but a small smile tugged at my lips. “You’re annoying.”
“Correct,” he said. “But consistent.”
“Get out of my office. Pretty sure my two p.m. patient is here.”
Kevin gave me a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am. Try not to traumatize anyone in my absence.”
He slipped out, and a moment later, Farah walked in—a perky twenty-something with the energy of someone who still thought brunch could fix her life.
“Hey, Farah,” I said, standing to greet her. “How are you doing?”
“Good,” she said, before her eyes landed on the floral explosion. “Wow. Secret admirer?”
“Something like that,” I muttered, dropping into my chair. “So, how can I help you and your uterus today?”
She laughed, twisting the strap of her purse. “Well, I’ve been having some shifts in my health. I’ve been throwing up a lot lately.”
I froze.
I’ve been throwing up a lot lately, too, but I figured my body was just rejecting the news that Khalifa had a secret wife.
She continued, oblivious. “And my period is late, which it never is.”
My period is also super late. Which, apparently, I haven’t noticed because Khalifa has always been the one to buy my pads.
Like clockwork. Perfectly timed to my cycle, down to the brand and absorbency level.
The man knew the symptoms of my uterus better than I did.
It was both unsettling and, frankly, kind of romantic.
“I’ve been really emotional,” she said softly.
I’m always emotional, I thought, but lately it’s been...unhinged.
“And I’ve definitely gained some weight,” she added with a wince.
Me too, but I blamed the apology chocolates and my three a.m. therapy sessions with a spoon and a jar of Nutella.
She took a deep breath. “Long story short, I think—”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” I blurted.
Farah jumped, then smiled nervously. “I know, I’m excited too.”
I stared at her, horrified. “I’m...pregnant.”
“You mean...me?”
“No.” I exhaled, half-laughing in disbelief, half on the verge of collapse. “I mean me, Dr. Lillian Tariq is pregnant with her lying husband’s spawn.”
She blinked. “Oh.”
I pointed at her clipboard, trying to remember how to doctor. “And you, too, probably. We’ll, uh, get you checked out right away.”
“Um,” she said gently, “congratulations?”