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That small, ordinary knowing hurts more than any of the dramatic things between us.

Not the test. Not the result. Not the fight. Just the fact that she knows how I don’t sleep.

I get up and go to the hall closet before I can think too much about that. On the top shelf, inside a plain file folder, is the ultrasound printout Acharya gave me weeks ago. I took it because it was part of the medical file.

That’s what I told myself.

I sit on the couch with it in one hand and my phone in the other.

The image is grainy, impersonal to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re looking at. To me it feels worse for being small, for being ordinary, for looking like medicine when it has become the center of everything.

Maggie texts again: Are you still there?

Me: Yes.

Maggie: Good.

We don’t talk about Chandler after that. We don’t talk about the result either.

She tells me the crackers Acharya recommends taste like drywall. I tell her that is not a recognized medical flavor profile. She says it should be.

I ask if she ate. She says yes, then adds, Mostly to avoid hearing your voice in my head.

I type: Efficient.

She tells me I’m impossible. I say yes.

The messages get slower after that. More space between them. Not because anything is wrong. Because exhaustion is finally winning where discipline and distance failed.

By then I’m stretched out badly on the couch, one arm over my eyes, the ultrasound printout still in my hand.

Her last message takes longer than the others.

Maggie: You should sleep, doctor.

I stare at it.

Then type back: You first.

A minute later: Trying.

I look at the screen, then at the image in my hand.

Me: Me too.

There’s no answer after that.

Not because she’s angry. Because she’s asleep.

I know it in that same quiet way you only get about one person, the kind of certainty that comes from too many patterns learned without meaning to learn them.

I don’t move. I lie there with the phone loose in my hand and the ultrasound against my chest, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about how completely this has gone past wanting.

I’ve done everything I know how to do to stop thinking about her. I’ve stayed in the hospital until my legs hurt. I’ve cut people open. I’ve stitched them closed. I’ve buried myself in work so completely that there should have been nothing left of me by the end of it.

And still, when the noise finally dies down, there she is.

By the time I fall asleep, the phone has slipped sideways against the cushion and the printout is still in my hand.