I wake up to white. White ceiling. White walls. White sheets that smell like bleach and something metallic I don't want to name. My body feels wrong. Heavy. Distant. Like I'm wearing someone else's skin. I try to move my hand and pain screams through my ribs. I gasp, and that hurts too. "Mrs. Chen." A nurse appears beside me, her face professionally sympathetic. "Don't try to move. You've been in an accident." Accident. The word floats in my head, meaningless. Then it all crashes back. The car. The rain. Headlights in the mirror, too close, too fast. The impact that sent us spinning off the coastal highway. The moment of weightlessness before we hit the rocks below. "My husband," I whisper. My throat feels like sandpaper. "Marcus. Is he—" "He's fine. Minor injuries. He's been here every day." Relief floods through me, so intense I almost cry. Then I remember. My hand moves to my stomach. Still flat under the hospital gown, but it shouldn't be flat. It should be swelling with our future. With the baby we'd just announced at dinner, champagne replaced with sparkling cider, our friends cheering. The baby we were celebrating when someone ran us off the road. "My baby," I say, and I already know. I can feel the emptiness. "Where's my baby?" The nurse's expression shifts. Pity replaces professionalism. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Chen. You were twelve weeks along. The trauma was too severe. There was nothing we could do." The world tilts. I want to scream, but nothing comes out. Just this hollow, airless silence where my child used to be. "I'll get the doctor," the nurse says, backing away like my grief might be contagious. I lie there, staring at the white ceiling, feeling the absence of everything I'd been carrying. Not just the baby. Something else. Some fundamental piece of myself that I'll never get back. The door opens. Marcus walks in, and for a second, I want to reach for him. Want him to hold me while I fall apart. But he doesn't come to me. He stands at the foot of the bed, hands in his pockets, and his face is wrong. Not grief. Not devastation. Guilt. "Ava," he says, and my name sounds like an apology he doesn't want to make. "They told me," I whisper. "About the baby." He nods. Looks away. "I know. I'm sorry." Sorry. Such a small word for such a massive loss. "What happened?" I ask. "The accident. Do they know who hit us?" Something flickers across his face. Too fast to read. "Hit and run," Marcus says. "They're investigating." He's lying. I don't know how I know, but I do. Maybe it's the way he won't meet my eyes. Maybe it's the tension in his shoulders. Maybe it's just that after five years of marriage, I can read him like a book. "Marcus," I say slowly. "What aren't you telling me?" "Nothing. You need to rest." He moves toward the door. "I'll come back later." "Wait—" But he's already gone. I lie there in the white room, in the white bed, feeling the white-hot absence of my child. And I wonder why my husband can't look at me. ---