"Sister, you really shouldn't keep moping over what happened to Julian. You need to get out more." Her tone was light, airy, as if the words cost her nothing. "Some things are just fate. Think about it. Your husband and my husband were on the same boat that night, and yet yours is the one who died. Mine survived."
She paused. A thread of satisfaction ran just beneath her voice. "I know this has been hard on you. But that's fate. Your luck has never been as good as mine, so you should learn to let go. Look forward."
Her words were a dull blade, sawing slow across my heart. My breath caught. The color drained from my face. I opened my mouth to answer her.
Then a deafening crash tore through the air.
Screams erupted from every direction.
"Julian!!!"
I snapped my head up and realized something had gone wrong on the track.
Julian Moretti's car lost control at the first bend, slamming straight into the barrier wall. The impact sent the venue into chaos. Medical crews rushed the wreckage. It took a long time before they lifted his bloodied body onto a stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance.
The race was called off. Spectators rose from their seats in a wave of panic. The captains, the soldiers, the wives of allied families, all of them wore grim expressions as they headed for the hospital. Adrian Winslow didn't bother finishing whatever she'd been saying. She dissolved into tears, face crumpling like wet silk, and followed the ambulance out.
Only I remained, start to finish, calm to the point of numbness.
The conversation I'd just overheard still echoed in my head. I knew perfectly well that this crash was no accident. It was an ending he had staged for himself.
To stay at Adrian Winslow's side, he was willing to gamble his own life.
In that moment, I didn't know whether to marvel at the madness of what he felt for her, or to grieve at how pathetic my own years of devotion had been.
On the third day, I received a call from the hospital.
"Ms. Bellandi, the items you placed in our cold storage have exceeded the holding period. Please come to collect them as soon as possible."
The word items turned my vision red at the edges.
Right. To them, it was nothing more than a pair of lost fetuses. Just another catalogued item with a case number.
The pain of that day still echoed inside my body. I pressed it down, kept my voice low. "Fine. I'll be right there."