Chapter One
1103 Words
Clara POV
"Your window to become a mother is closing." Dr. Reyes says it softly, like that makes it hurt less. She holds up my scan, pointing at numbers I don't understand. "Your egg count is very low for someone your age. I'm sorry, Clara."
"How low?" My voice comes out small. I'm only twenty-nine. I always thought I had time.
"Months, not years, if you want a biological child." She sets the scan down and looks at me with kind, tired eyes. "I know this is a lot to take in."
It is. It's too much. I nod anyway, because what else can I do? I thank her, gather my coat, and walk out into the cold afternoon like a woman who hasn't just had her whole future rewritten in one sentence.
The drive home is a blur. I keep thinking about all the plans Jason and I made. A house with a yard. Two kids, maybe three. A dog. We talked about it just last month, curled up on the couch, and he smiled and said, "Whenever you're ready."
I need to tell him now. Not tomorrow, not after dinner. Now. My hands shake on the steering wheel the whole way home, half from fear and half from a strange, sharp hope that saying it out loud to him will make it feel less impossible.
I park crooked in the driveway and don't bother fixing it. I let myself in through the front door, already calling his name. "Jason?"
No answer. His car is here. I know he's home.
I walk toward the bedroom, my heart lighter for a second, thinking maybe he's napping, maybe he'll wake up and I'll crawl into bed beside him and tell him everything. Then I hear it. A laugh. A woman's laugh, low and easy, coming from behind our closed bedroom door.
My stomach drops before my mind catches up.
I stand frozen in the hallway, telling myself it's the television, it's a podcast, it's anything except what I already know it is. Then I hear Jason's voice, warm in a way he hasn't been warm with me in months, and every excuse I built falls apart.
I don't remember deciding to open the door. I just do it.
The room tilts sideways for a second. Jason is sitting up in our bed, the sheet pooled at his waist, and beside him is a woman I don't recognize, her clothes scattered on our floor like she belongs there. Neither of them notices me right away. They're too busy laughing about something, too comfortable, too used to this.
"Jason." My own voice sounds far away, like it belongs to someone else.
He turns, and his face goes through three different expressions in half a second. Surprise. Guilt. And then, worst of all, irritation, like I'm the one intruding.
"Clara. It's not" He stops, because there's nothing he can say that isn't exactly what it looks like.
The woman finally seems to register that I'm real, and she has the decency to look embarrassed, pulling the sheet up over herself. I don't even look at her long enough to remember her face. My eyes are locked on Jason, on the man I was planning to build a family with an hour ago.
"How long?" I ask. My hands have stopped shaking. Everything in me has gone strangely calm and cold, like I'm watching this happen to someone else.
"Clara, can we talk about this later, please"
"How long, Jason?"
He doesn't answer, but the way his jaw tightens tells me everything. This isn't the first time. Maybe it isn't the fifth.
I think about Dr. Reyes's voice in my head. Months, not years. I think about the house with the yard, the two or three kids, the dog we never got. I think about how I almost drove home excited to share the worst news of my life with a man who was too busy to even notice I was gone.
Something in my chest breaks, but something else steadies at the very same time. I don't cry, not yet. I don't scream, either, though part of me wants to. I just look at him, really look, like I'm seeing him clearly for the first time in years.
"Get out of my apartment," I say quietly. "Both of you. Now."
"It's my apartment too"
"It's my name on the lease, Jason. Get out."
Maybe it's the flat, empty sound of my voice, or maybe some part of him still remembers who I used to be before he wore me down, but he doesn't argue again. He and the woman dress in silence while I stand in the doorway, arms crossed, refusing to look away, refusing to give him the privacy of feeling ashamed alone.
The front door closes behind them a few minutes later, and the apartment goes horribly quiet. I stand in the middle of the living room we picked out furniture for together, and I let myself feel it all at once. The betrayal. The grief. The fear of a closing window I can't slow down no matter how hard I try.
I think about waiting. Finding someone new, falling in love again, hoping he wants children as much as I do, hoping he doesn't lie to my face for months while I plan a future with him. I think about Dr. Reyes's kind, tired eyes, and I know I don't have that kind of time.
I sit down on the couch Jason and I bought together, pull out my phone, and do something I never imagined myself doing six hours ago. I search for fertility clinics in the city, scrolling until one name catches my eye.
Sunvale Clinic. My best friend Nora works there. She's mentioned it a hundred times, always laughing about the strange, glamorous clients who come through those doors, donors and hopeful parents alike.
I don't know yet how much that one name is about to change everything.
I stare at the number on my screen for a long time before I finally press call, my thumb trembling only slightly. Whatever happens next, I decide right there on that couch, I am not waiting for a man to give me the life I want. I am done waiting for anyone.
The line rings once, twice, and then a familiar voice picks up, warm and surprised to hear from me in the middle of a weekday.
"Clara? Hey, what's up?"
I open my mouth to answer, and for the first time all day, I have no idea what I'm about to say.
- Writer
