Chapter 1

Hiley 

The silence in Dr. Anya Sharma’s office is a living thing. It’s not peaceful; it’s the suffocating, sterile quiet that comes after a bomb has dropped, thick with the fallout of words that can never be unsaid. The paper on the exam table crinkles under me, the sound echoing in the stillness. I feel each tiny ridge of it through my jeans. It’s the only thing that seems real.

“Premature Ovarian Insufficiency.” Dr. Sharma says the words again, her voice gentle, but the syllables are clinical, sharp. They cut right through me. “It means your ovaries aren't functioning at typical levels for your age, Hiley. Your ovarian reserve is… diminished.”

Diminished. The word hangs in the air, so polite and so utterly violent. A tidy, medical term for broken. For empty. I stare at the cheerful anatomical chart on the wall behind her, a diagram of a perfectly functioning universe that no longer applies to me. My body has become a foreign country, and I’ve just been denied a visa.

“So, what does that mean?” I ask, and I’m proud of my voice. It sounds like my own. It doesn’t tremble. It doesn’t betray the frantic, high-pitched scream that’s started up in my head. “For… the future.”

For everything, the scream clarifies. For the list of baby names tucked into my nightstand. For the phantom weight of a child in my arms I’ve felt my whole life. For the entire map of my future, which has just been set on fire.

Dr. Sharma’s kind eyes, the ones that crinkle at the corners when she smiles, are full of a soft, professional pity that I can’t stand. “It doesn't mean it's impossible. But it does mean that natural conception would be… a significant challenge. The probability is very low.” She pauses, consulting my chart as if the answer might have changed. It hasn’t. “Less than one  percent.”

One  percent.

The number isn’t a zero, but it feels worse than a zero. A zero is an ending. One  percent is a sliver of hope designed to torture you. It’s a statistical cruelty. A locked door with the key just out of reach. I nod, the motion feeling stiff, disconnected from my body. I’m an actress playing the part of a woman receiving bad news, and I’m nailing my performance. I slide off the exam table, my boots making a soft thud on the linoleum. My legs hold me. I’m amazed they still work.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I say, my own professionalism, a reflex, a shield that snaps into place. “I appreciate you explaining it all.”

I walk out of her office, my posture perfect. I schedule a follow-up appointment at the front desk that I have no intention of keeping. I move through the city, a ghost in the afternoon sun. The world is a vibrant, Technicolor movie I’m no longer a part of. A woman laughs into her phone, her head thrown back. A father lifts his daughter onto his shoulders. Life, loud and messy and beautiful, is happening all around me, and the glass wall between me and it just became bulletproof.

Back in my apartment, the numbness finally begins to thaw, leaving behind an ache so profound it feels physical. I sink onto my sofa and wrap my arms around my stomach, as if I can physically hold in the hollowness. My home, my sanctuary, suddenly feels hostile. Every object is an accusation. The spare bedroom I use as an office, with its big window and afternoon light, has always been the silent, secret nursery-in-waiting. The worn copy of Goodnight Moon on my bookshelf, saved from my own childhood to be passed down. They are relics of a future that has just been canceled.

I’m still sitting there, a statue carved from grief, when the front door opens and my best friend, Cherry, bursts in. She’s a whirlwind of bright colors and kinetic energy, a stark contrast to my gray world. She’s holding a bag of takeout from our favorite Thai place, the smell of basil and chili filling the air.

She takes one look at my face and the takeout bag hits the counter with a thud.

“Oh, Hiley. No.” Her voice is low, fierce. She doesn’t need details. She sees the devastation. In two long strides, she’s in front of me, pulling me into a hug that smells like her signature jasmine perfume and the city. I collapse against her, the first crack in my carefully constructed composure.

I tell her everything. The words come out tangled, broken. Diminished. Insufficient. One  percent. She just holds me, her grip a lifeline. She doesn't offer the empty platitudes I’ve been dreading. When I’m done, a mess of silent, hiccuping tears, she pulls back, her expression set. Her eyes are blazing.

“Okay,” she announces, her tone leaving no room for negotiation. “So tonight, we riot.”

“Cherry, I can’t even move.” My voice is a ragged whisper.

“A metaphorical riot,” she clarifies, already marching toward my bedroom. She’s a woman of action. It’s what I love and, at times, what exhausts me most about her. “A gorgeous, one-night-only, fuck-you to the universe and its objectively terrible decisions. I have tickets to the Calloway Foundation gala. My company bought a table. We are going.”

“A gala?” The idea is so absurd I almost laugh. “Cherry, I want to lie here until I turn into dust.”

“Not an option.” She reappears, holding a velvet dress bag like a battle standard. She unzips it with a dramatic flourish. A dress the color of a midnight sky, a shimmering, elegant sheath of dark blue silk, spills out. “Tonight, you are not Hiley Eunice, the woman whose day fell apart. Tonight, you are a mysterious art collector. You are an undercover journalist. You are anyone but yourself. We will drink overpriced champagne, and we will not think about a single damn thing beyond what’s right in front of us. This isn’t about looking for a man, Hiley. This is about forgetting you are a woman who has been wounded.”

I stare at the dress. It’s a costume for a life I’m not living. For a woman who is whole. A woman who isn’t standing in the wreckage of her own body. The thought of putting it on, of pretending, feels like a betrayal of my own grief.

 It felt like asking a broken limb to run a marathon. My entire body protested the effort, sinking further into the cushions.

But the thought of staying here, alone in this silent, accusing apartment, feels so much worse.

I need to forget. Just for one night. I need an anesthetic.

“One night,” I say, the words feeling like they belong to someone else, someone braver.

Cherry’s smile is a sudden, brilliant sunrise. “One night,” she confirms, her energy surging now that she has a mission. “To raise a little hell and start a riot.”