The nurse's voice was carefully neutral, but I caught the pity in her eyes. Everyone in this Family-controlled clinic knew the truth. Everyone had heard the whispers.
He'd been sending flowers for three days straight.
Red roses, dozens of them, delivered with mechanical precision every morning.
I didn't look at them. Just gave a flat acknowledgment.
Leaning on my crutch—my leg still weak from the fall, my hand still useless—I gathered my few belongings and prepared to check out. A change of clothes. My phone, retrieved by a sympathetic nurse. The divorce papers, tucked into my bag like a loaded weapon.
The moment I pushed open the door, I froze.
The entire corridor was engulfed in flowers.
Roses everywhere—climbing the walls, spilling from vases, carpeting the floor in a sea of crimson. Identical to the ones delivered these past few days. The scent was overwhelming, cloying, almost funereal.
My heart skipped a beat.
How did he know I was being discharged today?
Had he been watching?
For one desperate, foolish moment, hope flickered in my chest like a dying candle. Perhaps he did care. Perhaps this was his way of apologizing, of showing me that I mattered—