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She had thought that it was growth, and that growth would bring happiness. But she wasn’t happy now.
She lay in bed, a king. She ordered room service.
She went to work virtually. Because she did still have a job. A job that she loved.
Anyway, he was still her husband, so it wasn’t like they were broken up entirely.
She wanted to ask him what he thought was going to happen. Because they were still having a baby whether he wanted to be with her or not, and the way it had all dissolved...
Surely he wasn’t thinking that he wouldn’t be part of their child’s life?
Poor Luca.
He wasn’t a liar. Or a manipulator. All the things he had said he really believed. That he might not be enough for her. That he might hurt her.
But she also knew he was genuinely mostly afraid of being hurt himself. How could she blame him?
His father had been cruel. Outrageously so.
She couldn’t be wholly angry at him for his inability to let that go instantaneously.
But he was right. She believed on some level that he would love her. Someday. And he had tried to tell her that wasn’t the case.
Like it was a kindness.
“I still don’t believe you,” she said, mostly for her own benefit. Mostly for her own heart.
“I still love you.”
And that, she did believe. Even though it made her cry so hard she could barely breathe.
He was trying to work. And he couldn’t. And it infuriated him. He needed to keep everything separate.
This was what he was good at. This was his purpose. His mission. This was what mattered.
And yet... She was in everything.
She was even in his motivation to do work. Because medical discoveries made the world a safer place for her too. And he could so easily recall the terror he had felt when he thought that she was sick.
Lately, his research brain had been thinking about maternal mortality rates around the world.
He had been thinking about complications and pregnancy, childbirth. Ways that they might be mitigated. Tests that could be implemented.
His focus was split.
His heart was...
He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t compartmentalize. That he needed to. He felt like...like he imagined other people must feel, except he was certain it was stronger. More powerful. Nobody could truly understand the way that he felt.
Not even Polly, for all that she showed him sympathy. What did she know. What did she know about him. Even if she gave him sympathy, she didn’t really understand.
And when did that become a good thing to you? This idea that you can’t be understood.
Protection. The word whispered across his mind. The landscape of all that he was.
For all the good it had done him.
He could feel her. Even now. She occupied him. She obsessed him.