The nurse came in with my discharge papers. She smiled gently and asked if my family was on their way. I lied and said yes. I packed slowly—each movement tugged at the incision, like my body itself was reluctant to move forward. I folded my nightgown into the small canvas bag and paused by the window. The lot below looked blurred, not from rain, but from what I refused to let fall from my eyes.

Maybe he was having a hard day. Maybe Belle had poisoned him again with her little insinuations. But somewhere in the quiet between my ribs, I knew the truth. This wasn’t new. They hadn’t just stopped loving me. They had started resenting me.

I called a taxi. The driver, no older than twenty, jittery and polite, helped me with my bag. When he asked if I was heading home to family, I simply said no. He dropped me at the rental car office three miles from the hospital. I signed the papers with a hand still trembling and slid into a 2011 Corolla that smelled faintly of old cigarettes and pine-scented cleaner. The seat was too low, the gear shift stiff. I adjusted the mirror and saw myself, pale, drawn, eyes rimmed in gray. I looked like someone who had been erased in pencil and forgotten to be redrawn.