Page 72 of His Orders

Cassie sighs. “Since yesterday. I met her for lunch and she finally let it spill. Said she wished she’d told you sooner. That it was eating her alive.”

My throat goes dry. I press my fingers to my eyes, breathing slowly and heavily.

“She didn’t even blame you for walking away,” Cassie says. “She said you were the only man she’d ever felt safe with. That you were the first thing that made her feel like maybe she could start over.”

The guilt hits me like a slow wave, dragging through every decision I’ve made since I found out. My anger. My silence. The cold way I left her standing in the hall. The part of me that still wanted to protect her even when I couldn’t look her in the eye.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, though I already know.

Cassie’s voice softens. “Because when someone’s breaking, you don’t keep pulling them apart. Especially not if you love them.”

I sit there long after the call ends, the words echoing in my skull like a slow burn through bone. I don’t move right away. I don’t speak. I just let the weight of what she said settle into my chest until I can finally stand, until I can finally make my legs move.

The hallway is silent when I step out of the bedroom. The apartment thrums with quiet domestic life, lights low, the smellsof chamomile and lavender lingering faintly in the air like she tried to calm herself and failed.

I find her on the couch, knees drawn to her chest, her face bathed in the pale glow of the television. Some old sitcom flickers in front of her, laugh track playing on a loop, but she isn’t laughing. She isn’t even watching. She’s just there, wrapped in a knit blanket too big for her, eyes glassy, staring into the distance like she’s forgotten how to move.

She looks up when she hears me, startled. Her lips part like she wants to say something, but no sound comes.

And before I can think better of it, I walk to the couch and sit beside her.

She doesn’t move at first, and I don’t look at her. I stare at the screen, at the ridiculous colors, the laugh lines of strangers who don’t know what it is to be this tired, this full of unsaid things. I should get up. I should give us both the space we keep pretending we need. But then her head leans against my shoulder, tentative, careful.

Her hair is soft against my jaw, her body a warm line beside mine, and even though everything in my chest still aches with the wreckage of what we’ve been through, the moment stretches between us like a thread pulled taut.

I let her stay and allow myself to feel all of it. I let the guilt and the love and the helpless ache blur together until it’s just her breath near my neck, the curve of her against my ribs, the steady thud of something unspoken trying to rise between us.

There’s no telling what happens tomorrow or if we’ll survive this. But right now, in this stillness, in this fractured calm, she is here and I am not walking away. The screen is bright, and thehero and heroine are waltzing beneath a paper moon to the swell of some cheerful track, the kind that promises everything will be fine in twenty-two minutes or less, but none of it holds my attention.

All I can feel is Ivy’s warmth pressed into me and how much I yearn for this to become what it should be.

28

IVY

The first thing I notice when I wake is the softness. The light, pale and silvery, spills across the duvet like poured milk, quiet and smooth against the rumpled sheets. The blanket smells faintly of detergent and pine, the scent of Ethan’s home, and beneath that, something warmer. Him. I’m alone, but I know he brought me here. I remember the way I curled into him, too tired to pretend I was okay, and how his body had felt beside mine—solid, warm, safe in that way only he can be. I must have fallen asleep against him. I must have been carried here, because my last memory is the laugh track from a sitcom and the soft weight of my head resting on his shoulder like it belonged there.

Living with Ethan is both heaven and hell. On the surface, we have settled into something almost domestic. He brews my tea before I’m even fully awake. He keeps the fridge stocked with things I didn’t even know I wanted until they’re there. There are prenatal vitamins on the counter now, the brand Cassie swore by during her residency rotation in maternal health, and soft cotton socks he picked out, folded neatly beside a pair of slippers I never asked for. When I try to thank him, he only nods, quietand unreadable, like this is just what you do when someone is carrying your child, even if that person broke your heart.

The texts from Daniel have stopped. For now, at least. The silence unnerves me, but I try not to feed the fear. There’s something steadier in the way Ethan moves through the apartment, in the sound of his voice when he answers his phone from the study, in the way his keys drop into the bowl by the door every evening. He is still here. He hasn’t run. That means more than I know how to say.

This morning, we go to the checkup together. I try not to let the nervousness show as we enter the clinic, but Ethan reaches out instinctively, his hand finding the small of my back. Just that touch is enough to hold me together. The doctor is kind, the nurse efficient, and the exam room smells like peppermint and paper, but all I can focus on is the quiet rise and fall of Ethan’s chest beside me as we wait for the screen to light up with the shape of our child.

The image makes my breath catch. There she is. I still don’t know the sex officially, but deep in my bones, I feel it—this is a girl. The outline is perfect, a little profile with a stubborn jaw and one tiny hand lifted like she’s already preparing to argue with the world. Ethan’s gaze is fixed, unmoving, his jaw clenched just slightly like he’s holding something inside. I steal a glance at him and for a moment, I see something in his eyes that almost breaks me. Wonder. Awe. The barest edge of a smile.

Later, we walk through the park, coats pulled tight against the cold, and Ethan hands me a white paper bag without a word. Inside are two melting ice cream sandwiches, the kind sold only in the small corner shop he likes because they make everything in-house the way his grandmother used to. The air bites at our faces, but the ice cream is delicious, rich vanilla pressed betweensoft gingerbread cookies. I laugh as I take a bite, teeth aching from the chill, and he watches me like he’s cataloging the sound.

“Who eats ice cream in December?” I murmur, my voice soft, full of joy I don’t want to examine too closely.

His eyes don’t leave mine. “We do.”

We sit on a wooden bench near the playground, just far enough to not be noticed but close enough to watch the swirl of color and motion. Children chase one another across the frosted lawn, their boots kicking up brittle leaves, cheeks flushed pink with cold. A little girl in a red puffer jacket climbs onto the jungle gym and waves to her father, who responds with a clap and a grin so wide I feel something twist in my chest. I glance sideways at Ethan. He’s watching too, quiet and still, the ice cream forgotten in his hand. I can see it so clearly in that moment—him, holding a child against his chest, teaching her how to ride a bike, pressing a kiss to her forehead before school. He would be the kind of father who remembers every birthday, who reads bedtime stories in silly voices, who shows up for every game, every recital, every scraped knee.

I never needed anyone to take care of me. I have money. I have work I believe in. My remote role at the nonprofit lets me build communications campaigns for women’s health across underserved regions. It matters. I matter. But this—this is something else. This is care that asks for nothing in return. It makes something in me soften and hurt all at once.

We return to the apartment in silence. Not because there is nothing to say but because neither of us knows how to breach the space between us. Ethan disappears into the kitchen, warming leftovers, setting the table like we’re married or something close to it. We eat quietly, side by side, and I try not to want more. Itell myself this is enough. That having him close—even if we’re not really together—is better than nothing. But the ache only grows, deeper now, more patient, like it has nowhere else to go but inward.

He hasn’t touched me since that night at the cabin. Not like that. Not in any way that makes my body remember. And I feel every inch of that distance. I feel it when he hands me a mug of tea without letting our fingers brush. I feel it when he walks into the room and looks through me like he’s trying not to want what he once had. I feel it when he leaves his door open at night, but never wide enough to invite me in.

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