The words breathed from her mouth, came as barely a whisper. Greg must have thought all had calmed because at first a smile flicked at his lips. He took another step closer before realizing he might have misread her and something was still wrong.

He stopped, and said, “Wait, what did you say?”

“I said,” she replied with a faint smile, “I hope you and Gail will be very happy. I’m leaving you.”

“Nem, what? No. Come on now.”

He reached out and grasped both her arms to prevent her from backing away. She threw them off, his touch feeling condescending and somehow inflaming her emotions even more.

“Stop looking at me. The poor pregnant, stupid woman. I don’t want to be married anymore. I’m not your Princess Leia and you’re not a Jedi knight from anywhere.”

“No, no. Stop this Nem. You’re carrying our child. This is the hormones. It says that in every pregnancy manual. Come on, let’s go home and talk through this and…”

“I’m going home alright. But to pack.”

His expression had changed in an instant to one of fear and confusion. His eyes broke her heart, but she’d come this far, and she wouldn’t go back. Couldn’t go back.

She turned and walked away, to put distance between them before she changed her mind. Her emotions were out of control. Maybe hormones. Maybe worry that he’d discover her secret. And that made her angry all over again, because he shouldn’t have put her in this position where she had to worry about him and the diary and what might happen.

A little cog moved inside, just a small innocuous turn.

Oh no, what did that mean?

Now she was more frightened than she’d ever been. As angry as she felt in this moment, she couldn’t bear if something terrible happened to him. She did love him and this baby, more than anything in the world.

With that thought her emotions calmed enough for her to see his point of view. He wasn’t having an affair with Gail, and Nem had misled him. And, she loved the goofy Star Wars stuff. He was right, pregnancy had played havoc with her. She wasn’t thinking straight.

Go back. Apologize and you’ll work it out.

But what about the diary? She was sure she felt the cog move.

You’re a team. You’ll work it out, she repeated to herself.

She swung about to return to him and fix this mess. The extra baby weight and skipping breakfast this morning, which for a moment made her feel faint, threw her off balance. And she was falling before she even realized.

The path rose up to greet her; she saw it as if she was riding a roller coaster and heading for a dip. She tried to extend her palms to stop her fall but there was no time. A crack sounded—she hoped it wasn’t a bone—just before everything went black. Her last thoughts were of the baby, then a why—Why did Greg push her?