Chapter 37 - Lucy
How do you know when you’re falling?
Not metaphorically. Not in the poetic way people talk about when they’re already on the ground and bleeding and pretending it was beautiful.
I mean the actual moment your body realizes gravity has shifted.
There’s a split second when your stomach drops and your balance goes with it, when your arms instinctively reach for something that isn’t there yet.
Your brain hasn’t caught up, but your body knows, knows you’ve miscalculated, knows you’re no longer upright, knows the ground is coming whether you’re ready or not.
That’s what this feels like.
Not panic.
Not certainty.
Just that quiet, terrifying understanding that something inside me has tipped, and I don’t know how far the fall is going to be.
I’m standing in the ballroom of the Northwell Christmas party when it hits me.
Not during the speeches.
Not during dinner.
Not even when Julian introduced me, again and again, as my wife with that calm, steady authority.
It happens later.
When I’m not looking for it.
The Northwell holiday event is nothing like the galas.
There are still chandeliers and tailored suits and impeccable wine, but the edges are softer.
Staff are encouraged to bring families. There are children running between tables, their laughter cutting through the polite hum of conversation.
A tree taller than my childhood living room ceiling glows in one corner, ornaments catching the light like scattered stars.
For the first time, I’m here as a guest.
Not staff.
Not the woman behind the clipboard.
Not the one making sure everyone else is comfortable.
I’m here because I belong here.
That realization alone is enough to make me dizzy.
Julian is beside me, his hand warm at my back as we move through the room. He’s in black tonight, classic and sharp, but his tie is a deep green that matches my dress.
I didn’t point it out. He didn’t either. But I noticed.
The past month flickers through my mind like a quiet montage I didn’t realize I was collecting.
Morning coffee together, sometimes in silence, sometimes with his hand resting lightly on my thigh or draped around the back of my chair like an anchor.
The way he kisses my forehead without thinking, when I’m tired, when I’m overwhelmed, when worried about my mom.
I don't even know if he's realized that he does it in this intimate, comforting way.
These kisses aren't like the ones from the photo shoot.
It's like he senses I need his comfort, and he'll pull me in, or bend over where I'm sitting, just be close to me, and press a soft kiss to my forehead or the crown of my head.
I didn't know Julian had it in him. One day, after I had gotten off a call with one of my mom's doctors and was feeling tired and anxious, he sat beside me, tucked me into his side, pressed his lip to the side of my head, and just held me like that.
A thought came to me so fast, "Julian would be an incredible father," and oh my god, I could see it.
.. Julian, with a little version of us quietly comforting them, kissing away their troubles, and the thought. .. the image rattled me.
The way he always comes home for dinner now, no matter how late it is, unless he’s out of the city… and even then, there’s food waiting for me, ordered from places he’s learned I like.
Saturday mornings at the treatment facility, sitting with my mom, Julian listening more than he speaks, asking questions that matter.
The way Emily watches him when she thinks no one notices.
The first time I brought her to the penthouse, Emily lost her mind.
She walked through every room like she was on a game show, flopping dramatically onto couches, peeking into drawers, and opening closets with zero shame.
“LU,” she whisper-shouted in the dressing room, fingers buried in a rack of cashmere. “I am stealing some of these... I deserve cashmere. Especially because I usually live in scrubs these days.”
We video called my mom later in the day, and Em walked her through the rooms and showed her the view. I promised to bring her here as soon as she was cleared to come visit.
"You look happy, Lucy," My mom had said with a smile on her face.
Emily stayed over that night, Julian was out of town, and he sent food anyway. Enough for an army. Enough for comfort. Enough that Emily stared at the bags and said, “Okay, but this is how you know he’s serious.”
Later, when she was curled up beside me on the couch, she nudged my shoulder.
“Be honest,” she said. “Are you falling for your husband?”
I’d laughed then.
Too fast.
Too loud.
Now, standing in this room, watching Julian laugh with one of the founders while absentmindedly keeping a hand on me like he’d lose something important if he didn’t…
I’m not laughing.
Graham Whitaker crosses my mind unbidden.
Lunch with him last week had been easy. He didn’t push. Didn’t flirt. Didn’t pretend he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. He formally offered me a position, real work, real influence, a chance to do more than plan events.
And then, quietly, near the end, "How is your mother doing with her treatment?"
I had bitten my lip and debated how much to share.
It wasn't that I felt like I couldn't trust Graham; he had never been anything but nice to me and seemed to see me as more than what most did at his level of influence.
It was that I knew how affected Julian was by Graham's attention towards me.
Julian wasn't happy when I told him about lunch.
I had told him it was professional and that he could join me if he wanted to.
Julian had tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, given me a heart-melting kiss and told me he trusted me.
I took a sip of my water and replied to Graham, "She is doing ok, honestly, not what I had expected. They are trying a new medication this week to see if that changes anything. I know that these things can take time, but I... I just hate seeing her in pain."
He smiled at that, but it was more of I thought so look and less a smile for warmth. He’d slid a folder across the table.
“I’ve been looking into options for your mother,” he’d said gently. “Since the hospital.”
I’d stared at it, stunned. “Why?”
“Because I think there may be better treatments and doctors for her specifically,” he said. “Switzerland. Germany. Different approaches. Different trials.”
I didn’t open it. Not then.
But I took it and filed it away in my home office, just in case.
The music shifts in the ballroom, slower now, warmer.
People drift toward the bar, toward each other.
I’m standing beside Elliot while Julian gets us drinks when a small boy, no more than seven, approaches me with solemn determination.
He’s in a tiny tux, bowtie slightly crooked, shoes polished within an inch of their lives.
He stops in front of me and bows.
“Excuse me, my lady,” he says very seriously. “May I have this dance?”
I blink and smile at the tiny gentleman.
I glance toward the boy’s parents instinctively. They’re watching, smiling, already halfway to laughing.
“If it’s okay with them,” I say gently.
The boy turns and gives two enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Approved,” he declares.
Before I can respond, he grabs my hand and starts dragging me toward the dance floor.
I laugh, a full belly laugh, as I follow.
When we reach the edge of the dance floor, the height difference becomes obvious.
I glance down at my heels, then at him.
“Give me a second,” I say.
I slip them off and nudge them aside, but it's still not enough.
The boy looks at me thoughtfully, then grins. “You could always pick me up so we can hold each other close.”
I bark out a very unladylike laugh.
His mother hurries over, mortified. “I’m so sorry if he’s bothering you...”
“Not at all,” I say quickly. “Do you mind?”
She smiles. “Not at all, it would make his year. The poor boy has been watching you all night.”
"Moooooooommmmm." The boy groans.
I laugh and scoop him up easily. He wraps his arms around my neck in a fierce little hug, chattering away about school, that he's named after his grandfather, that he has a baby sister cooking in the oven that he can't see yet, and that this is the best party ever.
And then I feel it, that awareness. I glance up, and Julian is watching me.
Not casually.
Not politely.
Not like a man at a holiday party.
He’s watching me like he’s starving. There’s something in his expression I’ve never seen before, heat, yes, and want... but also something deeper. Something unsettled. Something that looks an awful lot like awe.
I look away from the intensity of it, and my eyes trail briefly to his left.
Elliot, Theo, Rowan, and Caleb. All of them are watching Julian watch me.
The boy squeezes me tighter, pulling my attention back to him.
“Did you know,” he whispers conspiratorially, “that you’re very pretty?”
I smile. “Thank you.”
Cameras flash somewhere nearby.
I ignore them and focus on the little boy in my arms, the warmth of him, the simple joy of this moment.
But my body remembers Julian’s gaze. It stays with me, it lingers. And that’s when it happens. That quiet internal shift. That sense of tipping forward without realizing how far I’ve already gone.
Because I know, in that moment, holding a child, barefoot on a dance floor, under twinkling lights, that I’m not pretending anymore.
I’m not managing.
I’m not surviving.
I’m not playing a role.
I’m falling.
And I don’t know how to stop.
Or if I even want to.