Lydia walked in like she owned the room, her eyes moving from Bryan to Alessa lying on the hospital bed. She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. It never did.
"I got tired of waiting outside." She said simply and positioned herself beside Bryan, close enough to make a statement.
Alessa stared at her. Then at Bryan. She said nothing because she had nothing left to say to either of them. She was too hollowed out, too exhausted from crying and collapsing and waking up in a hospital bed to summon even a fraction of the energy it would take to fight.
"How are you feeling?" Bryan asked. His voice was low, careful.
"I'm fine." Alessa replied, her eyes drifting to the ceiling.
"You don't look fine." He said.
"I said I'm fine Bryan." She repeated. Flat. Final.
Lydia shifted her weight and glanced around the room with a thin smile.
"Well, now that we can see she is okay, I think we should get going." She said, resting a hand lightly on Bryan's arm. "It's been a long day for all of us."
Bryan didn't move.
Lydia's fingers tightened on his arm slightly.
"Bryan." She said again.
He stood up slowly, like he was doing it against his own will. He looked at Alessa one more time.
"We will talk." He said to her.
Alessa turned her head and looked at him directly for the first time since they walked in. She studied his face for a moment, looking for something she wasn't sure she would find.
She laughed. Soft and dry and completely empty of humour.
"There is nothing to talk about." She said. "You said everything last night. You were very thorough."
"Alessa—"
"Goodnight Bryan." She cut him off and turned her face to the wall.
She heard his footsteps hesitate. She heard Lydia say something low and quiet. She heard the door open.
Then she heard nothing.
She waited until she was sure they were gone before she let the tears fall. She pressed her lips together tightly so no sound would escape, she refused to give these walls the satisfaction of hearing her fall apart again.
She placed a trembling hand over her stomach.
She didn't even know yet. She had found out when the nurse came in with a gentle smile and careful words. Four weeks. The doctor said four weeks like it was good news, watching her face, not knowing what kind of wreckage those words were landing on.
Four weeks.
She had spent three years trying. Three years of disappointment and shame and watching Bryan's family look at her like she was a defective product they had been saddled with.
And now.
Now that it was finally happening, everything was already over.
She pressed harder against her stomach and closed her eyes.
"I don't know what we are going to do." She whispered to the small life inside her. "But I am not going to fall apart. Not tonight."
The drive back to the house was different from the drive to the hospital. The easy silence they had shared earlier was gone, replaced by something heavier that neither of them was willing to name.
Lydia held Bryan's hand but he wasn't really there. She could feel it. His hand was in hers but his mind was somewhere down that hospital corridor, sitting beside a pale woman in a hospital bed.
"You are quiet." Lydia observed.
"I'm just tired." He replied.
She watched him from the corner of her eye.
"It's about her." She said. Not a question.
"Lydia, I just want to get home." He said.
"Don't do that." Her voice tightened. "Don't shut me out when I am right here."
"I'm not shutting you out. I said I'm tired."
"You've been staring out that window since we left the hospital and you haven't said more than five words to me." She replied. "Forgive me for noticing."
Bryan exhaled slowly and said nothing.
Lydia turned to face the window too and the car swallowed both of them in silence for the rest of the drive.
When they got home, she went straight up the stairs without touching him. Bryan stood in the living room alone and listened to the sound of the bedroom door closing above him.
He sat down on the couch and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
She is pregnant.
He had spent the entire drive trying to sort his thoughts into something manageable and failing completely. He knew what this meant legally. He knew what it meant for the divorce. He knew what it meant for Lydia and the plans they had made together.
What he didn't know was why the image of Alessa's trembling shoulders wouldn't leave him alone.
He had told himself for years that she would be fine without him. That she was resilient. That the love she had for him was something she would recover from once she was free of a marriage that gave her nothing back.
He had told himself a lot of things.
He picked up his phone and stared at her contact.
He put it back down.
He picked it up again.
He put it down again.
He sat there in the dark for a long time before finally going upstairs. He stood outside the bedroom door for a moment, then turned and went to the guest room.
He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow he would figure this out.
Tonight he just needed to think.