PART 3
Now, in that hospital hallway, every memory came back like punishment.
Emma kept looking anywhere but at me.
“Is it cancer?” I asked.
Her breath caught.
That was answer enough.
My grip tightened around her hands.
“No,” I whispered. “No, Emma.”
She closed her eyes.
A doctor stepped out of the room behind her, holding a folder against his chest.
He stopped when he saw me kneeling there.
“Mrs. Carter?”
Emma quickly wiped her cheek.
“I’m fine, Dr. Hayes.”
The doctor looked at me.
I stood slowly.
“I’m Daniel Carter,” I said. “Her husband.”
Emma flinched at the word.
“Ex-husband,” she corrected softly.
The doctor’s face shifted with discomfort.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“What is going on?” I asked him.
Emma stood too fast.
The IV wheels clicked sharply against the floor as she tried to move between us.
“Daniel, don’t.”
But her knees buckled.
I caught her before she hit the wall.
For one terrifying second, all the strength left her body.
She leaned against me like she had been fighting gravity for months.
The smell of hospital soap clung to her skin.
Her forehead rested against my shoulder.
And I felt how thin she had become.
“Emma,” I breathed.
She pushed herself away, humiliated.
“I’m okay.”
“You are not okay.”
The doctor spoke gently.
“Emma, he should know. Especially now.”
“Now?” I repeated.
She looked at the doctor with pleading eyes.
But he only lowered his gaze.
Something cold moved through me.
“What does that mean?”
Emma’s lips trembled.
“Daniel, please don’t make me say it here.”
“Then let me come with you.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“You don’t get to disappear from my life, sit alone in a hospital hallway, and still tell me no.”
Her eyes flashed, not with anger, but with pain.
“You lost the right to demand anything from me when you signed those papers.”
The words hit hard.
Because she was right.
But I saw the lie behind them.
She wanted me to leave.
Not because she hated me.
Because she was afraid of what staying would do to me.
The doctor quietly said, “The treatment has been hard. Today’s scans matter. She shouldn’t be alone.”
Alone.
That word broke something open inside me.
I turned back to Emma.
“Who brings you here?”
She said nothing.
“Who waits with you?”
Nothing.
“Who takes you home after treatment?”
Her silence became unbearable.
I looked at the doctor.
He answered for her.
“Most days, a volunteer driver.”
I stared at Emma.
“You went through this alone?”
Her face crumpled.
Only for a second.
Then she forced it still.
“I made my choice.”
“No,” I said. “You made my choice for me.”
She looked up.
And for the first time, anger entered her voice.
“I was dying, Daniel.”
The hallway went silent around us.
Even the nurse at the station looked up.
Emma pressed one shaking hand to her mouth.
May you like
The words were out now.
There was no taking them back.
