“Oh,” she said. “You’re here.”I set my bag down near the wall. “Got leave.”She frowned slightly, the way she frowned at inconvenient weather. “You could have at least called. Today’s already chaotic.”
My mother noticed me with mild irritation, the look of someone whose seating arrangements had just developed a complication. “Elena, honey. We have a full house.”
No one asked why I was pale. No one asked why I was holding myself carefully, why every movement was slightly deliberate. Chloe mattered here. Her dress mattered. Her weekend mattered. I was furniture trying not to block traffic.I moved my bag against the wall.
“Actually,” Chloe said, as though an idea had just occurred to her, “since you’re here, you can help. Those boxes by the hallway need to go upstairs. Shoes, accessories, some of the early gifts. Just don’t mess anything up.”
I looked at the stack of boxes. Then at her. Then back at the boxes.“Sure,” I said.I grabbed the first box. Not particularly heavy. But the moment I lifted it, something inside me shifted in a way it was not supposed to. A sharp pull, low and deep. I registered it the way you register a warning light and kept moving.First box upstairs. Second box. By the third trip the pain was no longer subtle. Spreading. Tightening. A message becoming more insistent with each step.
I paused at the bottom of the stairs, one hand pressed lightly against my side.“Are you seriously taking breaks already?” Chloe’s voice from across the room. “Can you not be dramatic for five minutes?”I picked up the next box.
Halfway up the stairs, my vision blurred at the edges. I blinked, set the box down, turned to go back. That was when it happened. Not a sharp stab. Something slower and heavier, like something inside had quietly given way all at once. I grabbed the railing. Made it down three steps before my legs stopped cooperating. The room tilted. I caught myself against the wall, breathing shallow, cold sweat breaking across my back.
“Chloe,” I said, and the voice that came out was smaller than I expected. “Something’s wrong.”She looked at me from across the room with the expression of someone deciding whether this warranted their time.
