3

Opal The sharp, sterile smell of antiseptic was the first thing that clawed its way into my senses. Then came the harsh white glare of fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, making my eyelids burn as I slowly blinked them open. My head throbbed with a dull, echoing ache, and my stomach churned with that familiar, hollow nausea. "Opal? Oh thank God, you're awake." I turned my head to see my best friend, Maya, leaning over the side of the hospital bed. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face pale with worry as she grabbed my cold hand and squeezed it tightly. "Maya?" My voice was raspy, dry like sandpaper. "Where... what happened?" "You fainted on the sidewalk right outside your apartment building," Maya said, her voice shaking slightly. "A stranger saw you collapse and called an ambulance. They found my number on your emergency contact list. Opal, you scared me to death." The memories came rushing back in a devastating wave—the dining room at the Morrison estate, the fake photos, Graham’s dead eyes, the cold signature on the divorce papers. My chest tightened so hard I could barely draw breath. I looked down at my arm, where an IV line was feeding fluids into my vein. Before I could speak, the curtain pulled back, and a female doctor stepped into the cubicle. She held a digital chart in her hands and gave me a gentle, reassuring smile. "Good to see you awake, Mrs. Morrison," the doctor said softly. "I'm Dr. Hayes. How are you feeling?" "Tired," I admitted, my voice barely a whisper. "And dizzy. My stomach feels awful." "That's completely understandable given your condition," Dr. Hayes said, setting the chart down. She looked at me with a thoughtful expression. "Opal, I need to ask you a few questions. When was your last menstrual cycle?" I blinked, my brain foggy as I tried to calculate the dates. Between the stress of Graham’s long hours and the sudden strain on our marriage, my schedule had been chaotic. "I... I think I missed my last one. Maybe two? I thought it was just stress. I’ve been working so hard, and things have been difficult at home." Dr. Hayes nodded slowly, her smile widening. "It wasn't stress, Opal. We ran a full blood panel when you were brought in to check for dehydration or chemical imbalances." She paused, her voice turning soft and warm. "Your human chorionic gonadotropin levels are extremely high. You're pregnant." The room went completely silent. The words hung in the air, swirling around my head as if they belonged to a language I didn't understand. Pregnant. "What?" I breathed, my breath catching in my throat. "You're expecting," Dr. Hayes repeated gently. "I'd estimate you're around six to eight weeks along." Disbelief washed over me first, sharp and disorienting. But right behind it came a wave of overwhelming, pure, staggering happiness that filled the hollow, aching void in my chest. A baby. Graham and I had talked about having children. We had dreamt of filling our home with laughter, arguing softly over names, picking out tiny shoes. Tears sprang to my eyes, hot and fast, spilling down my cheeks. Then, right on the heels of that joy, came a cold, suffocating terror. Graham. My hand instinctively moved to my flat stomach. It was his child. Our child. Created in the quiet moments before the lies, before the fake photos, before his trust in me shattered into dust. Despite the utter cruelty of how he had treated me over the last twenty-four hours, my first, raw instinct was to reach for my phone. I wanted to call him. I wanted to scream at him to come to the hospital, to tell him that this baby proved everything—that our love had created something real, that I had never looked at another man. "Opal, look," Maya whispered, her voice tight as she pointed toward the small television mounted on the wall across from my bed. The sound was muted, but the bold red banner across the bottom of the screen was impossible to miss: MORRISON GROUP BILLIONAIRE DIVORCE SPARKED BY CHEATING SCANDAL. The footage cut to the front doors of the Morrison corporate building. Flashbulbs flared in a blinding storm as Graham stepped out, surrounded by four heavy security guards. He looked striking, immaculate, and utterly unapproachable in a dark tailored suit. A barrage of reporters shoved microphones toward his face. “Mr. Morrison! Did your wife really cheat on you with a former consultant?” “Are the leaked hotel photos authentic?” “Is it true she signed the divorce papers today?” Graham stopped for a brief second. He turned toward the cameras. I held my breath, my heart pounding against my ribs so hard it was painful. I waited for him to say something—anything—to defend me, or at least shut down the media circus tearing my name to pieces. Instead, his expression remained cold, hard, and entirely indifferent. "Our marriage is over," Graham said, his icy voice clear even through the muted broadcast captions. "The matter is being handled by my legal team. I ask that the press respect my privacy at this time." He turned and stepped into the back of his dark SUV, the tinted door closing behind him like a coffin lid. The screen shifted back to the news anchor, but I couldn't read the words anymore. My vision blurred as fresh tears flooded my eyes. He didn't defend me. He didn't care that the world was calling me a disgraced, unfaithful woman. He had discarded me like trash, completely convinced of my guilt. My hand dropped away from the bedside table where my phone lay. The foolish urge to call him withered and died inside my chest. If I told him now, what would he say? He would accuse me of lying. He would say the baby wasn't his. Or worse, he would use his billions, his power, and his ruthless lawyers to tear the baby away from me the moment it was born, declaring me an unfit mother because of the fake scandal he believed. I wouldn't use a child to trap a man who didn't trust me. I wouldn't beg for his love using a heartbeat. "Opal?" Dr. Hayes’s voice pulled me out of the dark spiral. She was looking at my chart with a faint frown. "Given how high your hormone levels are, I'd like to perform a quick bed-side ultrasound right now just to ensure everything is progressing normally. Is that okay?" I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. "Yes. Please." Dr. Hayes wheeled a tall ultrasound machine to the side of my bed. She squeezed a dollop of cold, clear gel onto my lower abdomen. I gasped slightly at the cold sensation, but my hands gripped the bedsheets as she pressed the transducer probe against my skin. The screen flickered to life, showing a dark, grainy image of my uterus. Dr. Hayes moved the probe slowly, her eyes squinting as she studied the monitor. She paused. Then she moved it slightly to the left, her eyebrows pulling together in deep concentration. Silence stretched in the room, long and agonizing. Panic seized my chest. "What is it?" I choked out, my voice rising in terror. "Is something wrong? Is the baby okay? Please, tell me!" Maya grabbed my arm, her face turning white as she looked at the screen. Dr. Hayes suddenly stopped moving the probe. She blinked, looked closer at the monitor, and then turned to me. The serious look on her face completely dissolved into a wide, amazed smile. "Nothing is wrong, Opal," Dr. Hayes said softly, her voice filled with awe. "In fact, everything is very, very right. But... I think you should look at the screen." I turned my head slowly toward the monitor, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Do you see this shadow right here?" Dr. Hayes pointed to a tiny, dark sac with a flickering white dot inside. "That's a gestational sac and a heartbeat." "Okay..." I whispered, tears spilling down my temples. "And here," Dr. Hayes moved her finger an inch to the side, pointing to a second, distinct shape, "is a second sac. With a second heartbeat." I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth. "Twins?" "Wait," Dr. Hayes breathed, adjusting the contrast on the screen as she tilted the probe upward. She let out a soft laugh of disbelief. "Opal... look right above the second one." There, nestled quietly in the upper corner of my uterus, was a third clear, distinct sac, its tiny white dot flickering with a rapid, steady rhythm. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump. There wasn't one baby. There weren't two. There were three. "Triplets," Dr. Hayes declared softly, looking at me with gentle eyes. "You are carrying triplets, Mrs. Morrison. Three healthy, distinct heartbeats." A loud, strangled sob escaped my throat. Maya let out a loud gasp, her hands clapping over her mouth as tears burst from her eyes. I stared at the screen, completely overwhelmed. The tiny, flickering lights looked like three fragile stars burning in the dark. Three little lives. Three tiny beings growing inside me, completely blissfully unaware that their mother had just been cast out into the cold with nothing to her name. The sound of their heartbeats echoed from the machine's speakers—a rhythmic, rushing sound that filled the quiet hospital room. It was the sweetest, most powerful music I had ever heard. It shattered the last remnants of my heartbreak and replaced it with a fierce, unbreakable resolve. I wasn't alone. I was never going to be alone again. Maya leaned close, wiping a tear from her cheek as she stared at the screen, then looked down at me. Her voice was barely a whisper, filled with a heavy, dangerous question. "Opal..." Maya asked, her eyes searching mine. "Are you... are you going to tell Graham?" I stared at the image printed out from the machine—the small thermal paper showing three tiny, fragile shadows side-by-side. I thought of Graham standing in the dining room, tossing forged photos at me. I thought of his cold, dead eyes as he told me our marriage was over. I thought of him walking into his luxury car, leaving me to face the cruel world entirely alone. He had chosen the lies over me. He had thrown me away without a second thought. I gripped the ultrasound photo tightly in my hand, feeling the paper crinkle beneath my trembling fingers. I wiped the tears from my cheeks, my chin lifting as a cold, absolute certainty settled deep into my soul. "No," I whispered, my voice steady, sharp, and cold as ice. "Graham Morrison will never know about them."