The Columbia forum post went live at two in the morning.

I didn't sleep after I uploaded it. I sat in the kitchen with my laptop and watched the replies multiply. Students I'd never met were sharing the thread. Someone screenshotted the ultrasound photo. Someone else recognized Stormi from James's graduate seminar. By dawn, the post had three hundred comments.

I closed the laptop and made coffee.

James came home at eight. I heard his key in the lock. His footsteps in the hall. He appeared in the kitchen doorway with his phone in his hand. His face was red.

"Did you see this?" He held up the screen. "Someone posted about Stormi on the student forum. They posted her ultrasound. They're saying I—" He stopped. His eyes narrowed. "It was you."

I poured my coffee. "Was it?"

"Who else would have access to that photo?"

I added cream. Stirred slowly. "Maybe someone from the hospital. Maybe Stormi herself. Maybe she wanted attention."

"Don't." James crossed the room. He slammed his phone on the counter. "Don't play games with me. You're trying to destroy my career."

I looked at him over the rim of my mug. "Your career?"

"The department chair already called. They're launching an investigation. Do you understand what that means? They could revoke my tenure. They could—"

"Fire you for sleeping with your student?"

His jaw tightened. "This is vindictive. This is cruel. I thought you were better than this."

I set down my coffee. "You thought I was quieter than this."

He stared at me. I stared back. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't cry. I just stood there in my kitchen and let him see exactly how calm I was.

It unsettled him. I could tell.

He grabbed his phone and left. The studio door slammed hard enough to rattle the walls.

I texted Cassidy: *He doesn't know it was me. Yet.*

Her reply came instantly: *Good. Let him sweat.*

Three days passed.

James barely spoke to me. He spent every hour in his studio or at the institute, trying to contain the damage. I heard him on the phone with his lawyer. With the department chair. With Victor Hale, his gallery dealer, who apparently wasn't returning calls.

I packed a suitcase. Not everything. Just enough.

On the fourth morning, I heard voices downstairs.

James. And someone else.

I walked to the top of the stairs and looked down.

Stormi stood in my entryway. She wore a cream sweater and jeans. Her dark hair was pulled back. She looked up and saw me. Her expression didn't change.

"Amber," James said. "We need to talk."

I came down two steps. "About what?"

"About the forum post." Stormi's voice was soft. Careful. "Someone is spreading lies about me. About us. And we think—"

"We?" I looked at James. "You brought her here?"

"She has a right to defend herself," he said.

"In my house?"

"It's my house too."

I descended another step. Stormi moved closer to the base of the stairs. James stayed near the door.

"You posted that ultrasound," Stormi said. Her voice trembled now. Practiced. "You're trying to ruin my life because you're jealous."

I stopped on the landing. "Jealous."

"James loves me. He's going to leave you. And you can't handle it." Her eyes were wet. She pressed her hand to her stomach. "You're attacking a pregnant woman."

I looked at James. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Say something," I told him.

He shifted his weight. "Amber, if you would just—"

Stormi stumbled forward. Her hand shot out and grabbed my arm. I tried to pull back. She leaned in close.

"You should've stayed quiet," she whispered.

Then she kicked me.

Her foot drove into my abdomen with deliberate force. The air left my lungs. I lost my balance. The stairs tilted. I reached for the railing but my fingers closed on nothing.

I fell.

The world became edges and impacts. My shoulder hit a step. My head snapped back. My hip cracked against wood. I tumbled down the full flight and landed on the hardwood floor at the bottom.

I couldn't breathe. Pain radiated from my stomach outward. I tasted copper.

Footsteps above me.

I turned my head. Looked up.

James stood on the landing. He stared down at me. His face was pale. His hands hung at his sides.

He didn't move.

Stormi appeared beside him. She straightened her sweater. Smoothed her hair. She looked at me crumpled on the floor.

Then she stepped over me and walked to the door.

"James," she said. "Are you coming?"

He looked at her. Then at me.

He followed her out.

The door closed.

I lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling. The pain in my stomach was wrong. Too sharp. Too deep. I pressed my hand against my abdomen and felt wetness.

I pulled my hand away. Blood.

I reached for my phone. My fingers were shaking. I dialed.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"I fell," I whispered. "I'm pregnant. I'm bleeding."

The operator's voice became urgent. "Stay on the line. Help is coming. Can you tell me your address?"

I gave it to her. Then I closed my eyes and waited.

The last thing I thought before the sirens arrived was that James had watched me fall and done nothing.

And that was the moment I stopped being his wife.

The ambulance lights painted the brownstone red and blue. I watched them through my eyelashes. A paramedic leaned over me. Her voice sounded far away.

"Can you tell me your name?"

I tried to answer. My mouth wouldn't work right.

Someone lifted me onto a stretcher. The movement sent fresh pain through my stomach. I made a sound I didn't recognize.

"Easy," the paramedic said. "We've got you."

The neighbor from two doors down stood on the sidewalk in her bathrobe. Mrs. Chen. She must have heard the fall. Must have called for help. I wanted to thank her but the ambulance doors were already closing.

The hospital was bright. Too bright. Faces appeared above me. Strangers asking questions. I answered what I could. My name. My age. Whether I was allergic to anything.

They wheeled me through white corridors. Through double doors. Into a room that smelled like disinfectant and fear.

A doctor came. She was younger than I expected. She pressed cold hands against my abdomen. I flinched.

"I need to do an ultrasound," she said. "Is that okay?"

I nodded.

She squeezed gel onto my stomach. The wand pressed down. I watched her face while she stared at the screen. Her expression changed. Something shifted behind her eyes.

"Ms. Perkins," she said quietly. "Were you aware you were pregnant?"

The room tilted.

"What?"

"You're measuring at approximately six weeks." She paused. The wand moved across my skin. "I'm very sorry. There's no heartbeat."

I stared at the ceiling tiles. Counted them. Twelve across. Eight down. Ninety-six total.

"The fall caused significant trauma," the doctor continued. Her voice was gentle. Professional. "We'll need to do a procedure to—" She stopped. Started again. "I'm also seeing considerable scarring in the uterine lining. Likely from the impact. Future pregnancies will be extremely difficult. Not impossible, but the likelihood is very low."

Ninety-six tiles. White with small black flecks.

"Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

I understood. I was pregnant. Now I wasn't. I might never be again. James had stood on the landing and watched Stormi kick me. Watched me fall. Watched me bleed.

And he'd walked away.

"Yes," I said.

The doctor squeezed my hand. "I'll give you some time. A nurse will be in shortly to discuss next steps."

She left. The door closed with a soft click.

I lay in the quiet room and felt nothing. No tears. No screams. Just a vast, cold emptiness where something had been growing without my knowledge. A future I'd never planned for. A child I'd never meet.

James had pressured me into terminating a pregnancy two years ago. Said the timing wasn't right. Said we needed to wait. I'd grieved alone in our bathroom while he painted in his studio.

Now I'd lost another. And this time, I might never get the chance again.

I pulled out my phone. My hands were steady. I opened the home security app. Found the footage from this morning. Watched Stormi grab my arm. Watched her lean in close. Watched her foot drive into my stomach.

Watched James stand motionless on the landing.

I uploaded the video to Twitter. To Instagram. To TikTok. I didn't write a caption. I didn't need to. The footage spoke for itself.

Then I opened my texts.

Me: *I need you.*

Cassidy: *On my way.*

I set the phone on my chest and closed my eyes.

Sixty-three minutes later, the door opened.

Cassidy still wore her courtroom blazer. Her heels clicked across the tile. She stopped beside the bed and looked at me. Really looked. Her expression cracked.

"Oh, Amber."

She sat down. Took my hand. Didn't say anything else.

I broke then. Not loudly. Just tears that came and wouldn't stop. Cassidy held my hand and let me shake and didn't try to fix it.

When I finally went quiet, she pulled a tissue from the box on the side table. Handed it to me.

"Tell me what you need," she said.

I wiped my face. "I need him to have nothing."

Her expression changed. Became something sharper. "Okay."

"I need a restraining order. I need divorce papers. I need to make sure he can't come near me. Can't call me. Can't—"

"Done." Cassidy pulled out her phone. Started typing. "I'm filing the emergency restraining order right now. Judge Morrison owes me a favor. We'll have it by morning."

"I'm not going back to that house."

"You're not going anywhere near that house." She kept typing. "Where do you want to go?"

I thought about the penthouse on the Upper East Side. The father I hadn't spoken to in six years. The apology I'd never made.

"Home," I said.

Cassidy looked up. Her eyes were wet but her voice was steel. "Then that's where you're going. After we burn his world down from right here."

She stayed until visiting hours ended. She brought me water. She called the nurse when the pain got worse. She sat in the chair beside my bed and made phone calls in her lawyer voice—clipped, precise, merciless.

When she finally left, she squeezed my shoulder.

"You're not going back to being quiet," she said. "Not ever again."

I nodded.

After she was gone, I checked my phone. The videos had gone viral. Tens of thousands of views. Hundreds of comments. People were tagging Columbia. Tagging the art institute. Tagging James.

I turned off the phone and stared at the ceiling.

Ninety-six tiles.

I counted them until I fell asleep.