My mind reaches for the easiest explanation first. Pregnancy. It’s the only possibility that doesn’t mean?—
I stop the thought before it fully forms.
“Has your cycle changed at all?”
“A little.” She shifts slightly against the pillow. “It’s still happening, just not normally anymore.”
“How so?”
“It’s irregular now.” She hesitates. “Sometimes lighter. Sometimes worse. And the cramps have been bad.”
“Any nausea? Appetite changes?”
She nods once. “Yeah. But not in the way people usually describe pregnancy.”
It’s obvious she already considered that possibility herself and ruled it out long before tonight.
I look at her again. The tears are gone now. Whatever cracked open earlier has already been pulled back under control. She’s studying my face instead, watching for reactions I’m trying hard not to show.
“Can I check again?”
She nods.
I place my hand back against her lower abdomen, moving slower this time. I press carefully around the edges, trying to understand what I’m feeling beneath the surface.
It’s there. Firm. Defined. Unmoving beneath my hand.
Real.
I pull my hand away again, forcing my expression to stay steady.
She doesn’t look away from me.
“There’s something growing in there, Dane.”
Not a question.
“I feel it.” The words taste wrong in my mouth.
A memory flashes through my head before I can stop it. One of my cousins finding a lump years ago. Adults whispering about scans and surgery and chemo while pretending the kids couldn’t hear them. She survived because they caught it early. Because there were doctors, equipment, and options.
I’m sitting in a shelter on an island with Charlotte in my arms.
And I have none of those things.
No way to see inside her. No way to know what this is. No way to stop it if it keeps growing.
And what I felt beneath my hand?—
That was real.
I’ve kept her alive for years. That isn’t ego or some story I tell myself to feel important. It’s just true.
Food. Shelter. Fire. The constant physical work of survival. The decisions that had to be made quickly and correctly.
We’re still here because those things held.
Because I made sure they did.
