The hallway blurred at the edges — not because I was going to faint, but because the world I’d been forced to accept had just been replaced by the one Connor had hidden.

He had known.

That was the first truth. He had known before the final cycle that the primary diagnosis had never been mine. He had known before he moved into the guest room.

He had known before he told his mother I was too career-focused to become a mother. He had known before he told our friends that grief had made me impossible to live with.

He had known before Melinda sat beside me in that clinic and squeezed my hand.

The report didn’t make me less wounded. It made me sane.