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Margo
Are you safe? I will go over there tonight.
I’m safe. I’m just handling some things.
She doesn’t pry any further than that. Margo is splendid that way.
Her steadiness lets my shoulders finally relax. I’m not completely alone in this. I have Milo, I have Margo, and now I have the baby.
I turn toward the closed door across the hall and decide, for good this time, that Lev never belonged to me, and I never once belonged to him. I built a whole story out of a borrowed name and a warm hand, out of kisses along my collarbone and the grip that owned me, and none of it was ever real. I don’t need him anymore, and I won’t spend one more night waiting for a door that opens only for someone else.
The second I’m out of here, I’ll hand in my resignation, and the salary and the desk and all those late nights will fade out of my life.
I’m scared of how much harder everything is about to get, but there are worse things. I’ll find another job, move somewhere new, and raise two children on my own.
I will protect every single thing that is mine with every ounce of fury in me, far away from Lev and from Yelena both.
Two days later, I sign the discharge papers and refuse the extra day of observation they try to give me.
I tell myself it’s the growing bill that feels like fifty grand and Milo’s empty apartment, but the real reason sits in my chest like a stone. The nurses keep wearing their romance-movie expressions when they trade the latest scoop about the couple across the hall.
They recount Lev’s sleepless, devouring devotion to Yelena, three separate soups, a call button answered before it finished ringing. One more day of it might smother me for good.
I change into plain clothes and hide the folded test results deep in the bottom of my beat-up duffle bag, and I take one last look at the closed door across the hall.
Before I leave, I open the Medical ID on my phone, and finally, at long last, the emergency contact is updated to Margo’s number. It takes me four seconds. I don’t know why it feels like signing my name to something.
I leave without saying goodbye to anyone, because Lev never once came to see if I was still here. It’s cleanest this way.
A nurse walks me out to the entrance, and afternoon sunlight spills warm over me. My legs feel weak after two days flat on my back, and I totter more than walk.
At the curb I spot a familiar, striking black sports car, and I know it at once from the flashy rims and the plate.
Maksim climbs out, reeking of bergamot and bad intentions, pushes his sunglasses up onto his head, and says my name. I cross my arms, widen my stance, and stay exactly where I’m.
He’s still beautiful, in that soulless way, but he looks thinner than I remember, and he doesn’t carry the oppressive presence that Lev does. There is nervousness on his face where the old arrogance used to be.
“Are you here to pick up your brother?” I ask, quirking an eyebrow.
“I came to see you,” he says gruffly.
“I don’t take surprise drop-ins from ex-boyfriends,” I tell him.
He flinches, but he doesn’t snap back the way the old Maksim would have. “I know you’re pregnant,” he says. The air rips out of my lungs, and my hand flies to my abdomen.
“Who told you that?” I demand as he steps toward me until there is barely any space between us. I back away from him. “Don’t come any closer.”
He stops where he is, his eyes dragging down my body, wary.
“Have you been monitoring me like a creep?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “I’ve just been keeping an eye on you.”
I laugh coldly at the difference. He has learned well from his master.
He rubs the back of his neck, awkward, and for a second he looks like the Maksim I once knew. “I heard you were hospitalized after a fall, so I looked into it.”
Only I know that Yelena pushed me over that rail.
