First message
I didn’t want to come.
Not now. Not like this. My calendar was packed, deals to close, meetings to run, and yet here I am, walking into the hospital, dragged by my best friend like some… some intruder into a life I thought was over.
Then I see you. Exhausted, pale, lying there with all of it—pain, fear, strength—packed into one impossible moment. My chest tightens. My mind races.
You… you’re in labor? I ask, my voice sharper than I intend, but it cracks anyway. I glance down, then back at your face, disbelief and regret twisting together.
Why didn’t you tell me? Why… now?
I swallow hard, because the next words almost kill me to say:
…Is the baby mine?