Page 74 of The Art of Ruin

“Okay.”

“Is this kind of pain typical? Should I call a doctor?” I press.

A small exhale leaves her, something that might have been a laugh under different circumstances. “Unfortunately, it’s normal, and no, a doctor won’t be able to do anything to help. I just need to ride it out.”

I study her for a second longer, taking in the way she’s holding herself—not curled tightly, not openly distressed, but contained in a way that suggests experience and I hate it intensely. “You should have said something,” I say.

Her eyes open at that, not fully, just enough to fix on me. “And what would that have changed? It isn’t exactly the easiest conversation to have. Oh, by the way, my body hates me and when I bleed, I get excruciating cramps. No man wants to hear that, believe me,” she says, deadpan.

The statement isn’t defensive. It’s how she feels. It makes me wonder if she’s had bad reactions from partners in the past. I immediately want to find every single man who’s diminished this and shove my fist down his throat until he chokes on his own teeth.

The answer, however, is not one I can give her. “Information is useful,” I reply instead.

“For you,” she says.

“Yes.”

She holds my gaze for a second longer, then lets it go, her attention drifting back to the ceiling. “I didn’t need it to be a conversation,” she adds quietly. “I just needed to deal with it.”

The phrasing sits with me for a moment.

Deal with it.

Alone.

Of course she did.

I don’t respond immediately because there isn’t a version of that I find acceptable, but I also don’t have the full parameters of what I’m dealing with yet, and I don’t make decisions without those. Instead, I reach for my phone and head for the door.

She notices. “What are you doing?” she asks, her tone sharpening slightly.

“I have to make a call. I’ll be back.”

“You don’t need to—”

“I do,” I say, not looking at her as I scroll through my contacts.

Because I don’t operate without understanding the problem.

And I don’t understand it yet.

I step into the hallway between her annex and my kitchen as the call connects, not going too far but giving her enough space that the conversation isn’t directly over her.

Isabella answers on the second ring.

“Everything alright?” she asks immediately, her tone shifting from casual to alert without hesitation.

“Define alright,” I reply.

There’s a brief pause, then a soft exhale. “You saw her.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

I glance toward Casey’s door again, thinking of the same details, the same controlled stillness, the same effort to remain unaffected. “She’s not ill in the way you suggested.”

“I didn’t suggest anything,” Isabella says. “She told me she wasn’t feeling well.”