STOP THE DRAMA AND COME HOME TO COOK.” MY HUSBAND SAID IT WHILE I WAS LYING IN A HOSPITAL BED — THEN HE TRIED TO DRAG ME OUT… AND THE DOOR BURST OPEN.

But because it was easier than conflict.

The accident didn’t just break my body.

It interrupted everything.

One moment I was carrying groceries, thinking about dinner and whether Emily would finish her homework without a fight. The next, there was the screech of tires, a blast of a horn, and then nothing.

And when I woke up, my world had been reduced to a hospital bed I couldn’t leave.

My parents stepped in where Henry didn’t.

They sat with me through long nights, handled paperwork, and brought Emily to visit, filling the room with a kind of warmth I hadn’t realized I had been missing. Every time the door opened, a small part of me hoped it would be Henry.

But for three weeks, it never was.

On the twenty-first day, he finally came.

And everything inside me changed.

He didn’t ask how I was.

Didn’t show concern.

Didn’t even try to pretend.

Instead, he stood at the foot of my bed, arms crossed, looking at me as if I were an inconvenience.

“Do you have any idea how much of a burden you’ve become?” he said.

I stared at him, trying to understand how someone could say that.

“I was hit by a car,” I replied.