“Reading.”
I frown. “Liesel?”
She shrugs. “I thought you could use some company while you wait. God knows they’ve made you wait long enough.”
Liesel might be one of the last people on earth I want waiting with me. She’s the only other woman Enzo has ever come close to loving. And she loves him as much as I love him. That alone makes us enemies.
“Thanks,” I say, swallowing hard as the door finally opens.
Liesel tosses the magazine and sits up.
Dr. Stanton enters, and from the worried look on her face, I know the results aren’t good. She ignores Liesel and heads straight for me. The doctor offers to take my hand, but I shake my head. Touching a stranger while getting some of the worst results of my life will destroy me.
But as the doctor starts speaking, I regret the decision. I need touch. I need comfort. I need love. I need something to hold onto. I already knew the truth, but her words will stop all hope.
“I’m sorry, Miss Miller…” she starts.
She might as well have set me on fire, that’s how badly her words hurt.
I feel a hand grip mine. I don’t look down. I know Liesel is holding my hand, and it doesn’t feel like a knife stabbing through my palm. It feels like comfort in one of the most soul-crushing moments of my life.
“…but the results show that you can’t have children.”
I blink once before the tears start, clouding my vision so I can’t see. Not only my present, but my future.
I can’t have kids.
I was never sure if I really wanted kids until this moment. Until it was confirmed that I couldn’t.
And it hurts. The emptiness is nothing I have ever felt.
I’m alone and have no hope of ever creating a life to continue my own. This life is it. And I’ll live it by myself.
I let myself be selfish. I let myself hurt for my own personal reasons. For not being able to have a biological kid. I let the feelings consume me. And only then, when I’ve cried all the tears for myself, do I cry for what this means for others.
I will never produce an heir. Unless Langston finds a miracle, I have no chance of becoming Black. No chance to use that power to help innocent people. No chance at keeping Milo from winning. And no chance trying to trade myself for Enzo. Milo would never want me now that I have no chance of ever becoming Black.
And I have no idea now how I can save Enzo…
My heart.
My fucking heart.
This pain will never stop. It’s suffocating me from the inside out. All the hope I felt after Enzo left and Liesel walked in to pull me from the depths of my desperation is gone. And I’m right back in the moment when Enzo was taken from me.
My body is numb. My cheeks burn with icy tears. My chest barely moves with shallow breaths. And I’m sure my heart has stopped, completely given up on life.
I can’t have a kid.
I can’t become Black.
I can’t save Enzo.
It’s too much. All of it.
I need a release, an escape from all it.
I feel a tight squeeze on my hand, and I know the doctor and Liesel are talking. I know they are trying to bring me back from the place I’ve gone. But they can’t. I have to find my way back myself. Enzo is the only one who could ever pull me from the cage I build.