"April Fools!" Chloe's voice rings through Adrian's apartment, bright and triumphant, and I watch my husband's face crumble like wet paper. "What?" His voice breaks on the single syllable. "There's no matching heart." Chloe—Adrian's twenty-two-year-old graduate student, the one he's been visiting at the hospital for three months—grins at the circle of people gathered in our living room. "I'm not even on the transplant list anymore. My numbers have been stable for weeks. I just wanted to see if you'd actually go through with it." She looks directly at me when she says it. At my six-month pregnant belly. The room goes silent except for someone's nervous laugh that dies immediately. Adrian stares at her, his hand still gripping mine from thirty seconds ago when he was begging me—actually begging—to consider "all our options" because Chloe was "like a daughter" to him and "what kind of people would we be" if we didn't at least explore whether I could— My brain won't even finish the sentence. "You're joking." Adrian's voice is hollow. "That's the point." Chloe tosses her dark hair, the same hair I've watched him tuck behind her ear in his office when he thought I wasn't looking. "April Fools' Day. I thought it would be funny to see how far people would go. And oh my God, Adrian, your face—" "Get out." The words come from my mouth before I realize I'm speaking. Everyone turns to look at me. "Natalie, come on." Chloe rolls her eyes. "It's a prank. Don't be so—" "You told my husband you needed my heart." My voice sounds strange, distant. "You made him ask me to terminate my pregnancy so you could have my organs. And you think that's funny?" "I mean, I didn't think he'd actually—" Chloe glances at Adrian, something flickering across her face. "It was supposed to be obvious. Who would really ask that?" Adrian hasn't moved. He's still staring at Chloe like she's a stranger. "Adrian." I turn to him, waiting for him to say something. Anything. Tell her to leave. Tell her she crossed a line. Tell her— "You should have told me sooner." His voice is quiet. I blink. "What?" "Before I—" He runs his hand through his hair, the gesture I used to find endearing. "Jesus, Chloe. I was actually trying to figure out how to convince Natalie. Do you know what that did to me?" Not *what that did to us*. Not *what you made me ask my wife*. *What that did to me.* "I'm sorry." But Chloe doesn't sound sorry. She sounds annoyed that her joke didn't land. "I thought you'd figure it out. It's April Fools' Day." "Some things aren't funny." My voice is shaking now. "Some lines you don't cross." "Oh my God, Natalie." Chloe sighs dramatically. "You're being so uptight about this. It was a prank. Adrian gets it, don't you?" She looks at him expectantly. The silence stretches. "Adrian." I say his name like a warning. He looks at me, and for just a second, I see something in his eyes I've never seen before. Resentment. "She's been sick for months, Nat. She's scared. People do stupid things when they're scared." "Stupid things?" I can't breathe properly. "She made you ask me to kill our baby." "Don't be so dramatic." Adrian's jaw tightens. "I never said kill. I said explore options. And clearly there are no options to explore, so can we just—" "Are you actually defending her right now?" "I'm saying you're making this into a bigger thing than it needs to be." His voice takes on that professorial tone, the one he uses when he thinks I'm being irrational. "It was a tasteless joke. She apologized. Can we move past it?" I look around the room. Our friends—his colleagues, mostly—are studying their drinks, their phones, the ceiling. Anything but me. Only Maya—my college roommate, the one person here I actually invited—meets my eyes. She looks horrified. "Natalie, I really am sorry if I upset you." Chloe's voice drips with false sincerity. "I didn't mean for you to get all worked up. It's not good for the baby, right? All that stress?" Something twists in my abdomen. Sharp. Wrong. I press my hand to my belly. "Nat?" Adrian notices, finally. "You okay?" "I don't—" The pain comes again, harder. I gasp. "Natalie!" Maya rushes over, her hand on my arm. The room tilts. I grab the back of the couch, but my legs won't hold me. Someone screams—maybe me—and then I'm falling, the floor rushing up to meet me. Adrian catches me before I hit the ground. For a second, I think maybe this will snap him out of it. Maybe this will remind him who matters. Then I hear Chloe make a small sound, and Adrian's arms loosen around me. "Maya." His voice is sharp. "Call an Uber for Natalie. Take her to St. Catherine's." "An Uber?" Maya sounds incredulous. "Adrian, she's—" "Chloe's having a panic attack." He's already lowering me to the couch, already turning away. "She can't breathe. I need to get her to the hospital." Through the haze of pain, I watch my husband scoop Chloe into his arms—the same arms that just held me—and carry her toward the door. "Adrian." My voice comes out as a whisper. He doesn't look back. The door slams shut, and I hear his car start in the driveway. Maya's hand finds mine, squeezing hard. "That son of a bitch." Another cramp tears through me, and this time I do scream.