The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 513

Mia's POV

The surgical gowns are the color of a sky that can't decide if it wants to rain.

Not quite blue. Not quite gray. Something in between—a shade that exists only in hospitals, in waiting rooms, in places where time moves differently than it does in the rest of the world.

Alexander's gown swallows him whole.

The fabric pools around his feet, the sleeves hanging past his fingertips, the neckline slipping off one shoulder no matter how many times the nurse adjusts it. He looks smaller than he did this morning. Smaller than he did yesterday. As if the gown has somehow shrunk him.

"I look like a ghost," he says, examining his reflection in the window. "A blue ghost. Do you think there are blue ghosts? Ethan, are there blue ghosts?"

Ethan is sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, his legs dangling. His gown is equally oversized, the hem brushing against his ankles, the fabric bunching at his waist where a nurse tried to tie it tighter. His glasses are slightly crooked. They're always slightly crooked.

"Ghosts aren't scientifically proven to exist," he says. "So the question of their coloration is moot."

"But IF they existed. IF. Would they be blue?"

"I suppose they could be any color. Or no color at all. Depending on the theoretical framework you're operating within."

"You're no fun."

"I'm plenty of fun. I'm just accurate."

Alexander turns from the window. His face is bright—too bright, maybe. The kind of brightness that comes from excitement and fear mixing together, becoming something that looks like joy but tastes like something else entirely.

"Mom." He crosses to me, his bare feet slapping against the linoleum. "Mom, do you think the doctors will let me keep the needle? After? As a souvenir?"

"I don't think that's how it works, baby."

"But I WANT it. I want to show my friends. I want to say, 'See this? This is the needle they used to take my bone marrow. To save my dad.' That would be SO cool."

My throat tightens.

I reach out. Brush the hair from his forehead. The same gesture I've made a thousand times before—when he was sick, when he was sad, when he was so full of energy that he couldn't sit still. But today it feels different. Today my fingers linger a moment longer than they should.

"We'll ask," I say. "Okay? We'll ask the doctors."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

He grins. That gap-toothed grin that still makes my heart squeeze every time I see it. Then he's off again, bouncing across the room to examine the monitors, the tubes, the mysterious equipment that lines the walls.

Kyle is standing by the window. He hasn't moved in several minutes. Just stands there.

He's wearing a gown too. The same not-quite-blue, not-quite-gray. On him, it looks wrong. Like seeing a lion in a cage. Like watching something wild try to fit into a space that was never meant to hold it.

"Kyle."

He turns. Those gray eyes—red-rimmed, bloodshot—find mine.

"Hmm?"

Ethan has found something to read. A pamphlet, probably—something about the procedure, the recovery time, the statistical likelihood of various outcomes. His lips move slightly as he reads, the way they always do when he's absorbing information.

Madison is sitting on the other bed.

She's not in a gown—she's not part of today's procedure. Insisted on being here when her brothers went in. Her dark hair is pulled back in a braid that's already starting to come loose, and she's wearing the purple sweater I bought her last month, the one with the tiny stars embroidered on the cuffs.

Eleanor is in her lap. Of course. Always.

"Mama?" Her voice is quiet. Almost lost in the hum of machines and the distant sounds of the hospital beyond our door.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Will it hurt them?"

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