That small movement hurt more than anger would have.
“Hannah,” I said gently. “How do you feel?”
Her voice was dry. “Like I got hit by a truck.”
A laugh almost escaped me, but it lodged painfully in my chest.
“You had emergency surgery. The abruption was severe, but you’re stable now.”
“The babies?”
“They’re alive. Both in the NICU. They need support, but they’re stronger than expected.”
Her eyes closed.
Her lips trembled.
“Both?”
“Both.”
She covered her mouth with one shaking hand. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, silent and unstoppable.
I reached for a tissue from the bedside table and offered it. She took it without looking at me.
“Girl and boy,” I added softly.
A broken little sound left her, half sob, half laugh.
“I knew it,” she whispered. “Everyone said two boys or two girls, but I knew.”
I waited, giving her space. The room hummed around us with quiet machines and distant footsteps.
Finally, she looked at me.
The softness vanished.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m your surgeon.”
Her mouth tightened. “Of all the hospitals in Chicago.”
“I know.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“No.” I swallowed. “There is more than I can say properly right now.”
She looked at the IV in her arm, the monitor clipped to her finger, the blanket tucked around her like she might disappear if no one held the edges down.
“You shouldn’t be in my room.”
“If you want another physician assigned to your care, I’ll arrange it immediately.”
Her eyes returned to mine.
For a second, the old Hannah flashed there—the one who could read every evasion in my face.
“Would you actually leave?” she asked.
The question had nothing to do with hospital staffing.
I deserved it.
“Yes,” I said. “If that is what you need.”
She looked away again.
“I needed that five years ago.”
The words were quiet.
They still cut.
“I know.”
“No,” she said, and now her voice shook. “You don’t.”
I stepped back from the bed, giving her the distance I had once denied her.
“You’re right.”
She stared at the window.
“You looked at me like I was nothing,” she said. “Like every moment we had was suddenly dirty because your parents told you it was. I kept thinking, if I could just explain, if I could just make you remember me, you’d stop. But you didn’t.”
My throat tightened.
“I believed them.”
“I know you did. That was the worst part.”
I lowered my gaze.
In the silence that followed, I heard the faint rhythm of the heart monitor marking each second I could never reclaim.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Hannah closed her eyes.
It was not enough.
Of course it was not enough.
Sorry was a cup of water thrown on a house that had already burned down.
But it was the only word I had that did not feel like another excuse.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” I continued. “I don’t have the right to ask for anything. But I need you to know I am sorry. For believing them. For not listening. For leaving you alone that night.”
Her hand moved to her wrist, searching.
“The bracelet was removed for surgery,” I said. “It’s safe with your belongings.”
A faint, bitter smile touched her mouth.
“Funny, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“I kept the one thing you gave me after you took everything else.”
I had no defense.
She opened her eyes again, and the exhaustion in them deepened.
“I don’t want to talk about the past.”
“Then we won’t.”
“I want to see my babies.”
“You need rest first.”
Her chin lifted with a stubbornness I remembered too well. “I want to see them.”
I almost smiled again.
Almost.
“I’ll ask the nurse to arrange a NICU visit as soon as it’s medically safe.”
She studied me. “That sounded very doctor-like.”
“I am trying very hard to be your doctor.”
“And not what?”
The answer sat between us.
The man who broke your heart.
The man who may have never stopped loving you.
The man who might already be too late.
“Not someone who makes this harder,” I said.
Her expression changed at that. Not softer exactly, but less guarded for one fleeting moment.
Then a knock came at the door.
Carla stepped in. “Hannah, there’s someone here asking for you. A Mara Levin?”
Hannah’s eyes widened. “Mara’s here?”
“She’s in the waiting area.”
“Let her in,” Hannah said immediately.
Carla glanced at me.
I nodded and moved toward the door. “I’ll check back later.”
“Ethan.”
I stopped.
Hannah looked at me with an expression I couldn’t name.
“Don’t call anyone,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
Her gaze held mine.
“Especially not your family.”
The fact that she said it without surprise told me more than I wanted to know.
I left before my face could betray me.
