“I knew before the divorce, Arjun,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the hum of the hospital’s ventilation system. “I found out right after the second miscarriage. The doctors did some deeper blood work. It wasn’t just a complication with the pregnancy. It was leukemia.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. The sterile hallway seemed to tilt, the white fluorescent lights blurring into a harsh streak.
“You knew?” I choked out, my grip on her cold hand tightening. “You knew while we were still married? Why didn’t you tell me, Maya? Why did you let me walk away?”
A faint, heartbreaking smile touched her pale lips, though her eyes remained entirely hollow.
“Because you were already drowning, Arjun,” she said softly, turning her gaze back to the empty wall ahead. “I watched you bury yourself in your work. I watched you flinch every time you looked at the empty nursery. You were breaking from the grief of losing our babies, and I knew… I knew if I told you I was dying, you wouldn’t stay out of love. You would stay out of duty. You would have turned into my nurse, and you would have hated the burden.”
