Chapter 2
“Leukemia.”
She said it soft, like she was afraid the walls would hear.
“Acute myeloid. They found it three weeks after the divorce.”
I stared at her.
My brain refused to process the word.
Leukemia.
Cancer of the blood.
My Maya.
“No,” I said.
It came out a snarl.
Stupid, useless denial.
“No. That’s not possible. You were fine. We were—”
I stopped.
We weren’t fine.
I’d just been too blind to see.
The tiredness.
The quiet.
The way she’d started bruising easy, blaming it on bumping into furniture.
I’d called it stress.
I’d called it the miscarriages.
I’d called it anything but what it was.
Because I was a coward.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
My voice shook.
Rage and guilt tangled in my chest, hot and sharp.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She laughed.
A bitter, broken sound.
“Call you? Arjun, you divorced me. You said we were better apart. What was I supposed to do? Show up at your door, sick and bald, and beg you to take care of me?”
She looked away.
“I didn’t want to be a burden. Not after I already failed at everything else.”
“Failed?”
I grabbed her shoulders.
Gentle, but urgent.
“Maya, listen to me. You never failed at anything. The miscarriages weren’t your fault. The divorce—”
I choked on the words.
“The divorce was my fault. All mine. I ran. I hid in work because I was scared I couldn’t fix the hurt between us. I left you when you needed me most.”
Tears burned my eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Maya. God, I’m so sorry.”
She stared at me.
For a long time, no one spoke.
Then her hand came up, shaky, and touched my cheek.
Her palm was still cold.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
“Every single day. I just… I thought you hated me.”
“I could never hate you.”
I pulled her close again.
Pressed my face into her short hair.
It was soft, even now.
“I love you, Maya. I never stopped. I was just too stupid to say it.”
A nurse walked by.
Glanced at us, raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
I didn’t care.
Let the whole hospital stare.
I wasn’t letting her go again.
“Come on,” I said, standing and helping her up.
She swayed on her feet.
I wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her up.
“Where are we going?”
“To find your doctor. I’m getting the full story. Then you’re moving in with me. No arguments.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
I cut her off.
“No. You’re not doing this alone. Not anymore. Whatever this takes, we do it together. That’s final.”
She looked up at me.
Tears still in her eyes, but for the first time… there was a flicker of something else.
Hope.
Small, fragile, easy to snuff out.
But there.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay, Arjun.”
I held her tighter as we walked toward the nurse’s station.
Every step felt like a promise.
A promise I’d spend the rest of my life making up for the day I walked out.
But as we turned the corner, I saw something that made my blood run cold.
A text on Maya’s phone, lit up in her free hand.
May you like
From Mom:
Don’t come crawling back. You brought this curse on yourself. We have no daughter anymore.
