The sterile smell of antiseptic fills my nostrils as I slowly come to, my eyes fluttering open to a haze of harsh fluorescent lights. I’m in a hospital room, my body weakened, attached to an IV, an oxygen mask covering my face, and a stiff neck brace limiting my movement. My head throbs with the echo of a thousand regrets, and I struggle to piece together what led me here.
I try to speak, but my throat feels raw and unresponsive. My vision blurs as I attempt to focus on the room around me—a maze of white walls and cold, unyielding machinery. In a corner, I catch sight of Eric, sitting with a woman I don’t recognize. She radiates confidence, her caramel skin and raven-long straight hair a striking contrast to the sterile hospital backdrop. Her slim figure and poised demeanor speak of a life I’ve never known.
Before I can force a word out, the woman speaks on Eric’s behalf, her tone clinical and devoid of warmth. “He’s filing for protective custody of Mateo,” she declares, her voice slicing through the fog in my head. “He’s also filing for divorce.”
A jolt of disbelief surges through me. Protective custody? Divorce? I’m paralyzed, unable to comprehend the words that crash over me like a tidal wave. My heart stutters, each beat pounding louder than the last, and I search Eric’s face for any sign of mercy or explanation.
I muster the strength to speak, my voice a mere whisper lost in the hum of hospital machinery. “Why… why?” I manage, my throat tightening as the weight of the revelation presses down on me. I need to understand, to grasp some semblance of truth amid this chaos.
Eric’s eyes, cold and unyielding, meet mine for a fleeting moment before he speaks. “Because you’re a junkie!” His words are final, sharp, and they cut through me with brutal clarity. The accusation hangs in the air, a verdict that shatters the remnants of my dignity.
I feel as though the ground has opened beneath me, the world spinning in a disorienting blur. The woman by his side doesn’t even mask her disdain, her eyes glinting with something I can’t quite decipher—a mix of pity, relief, or perhaps something darker. My mind races, struggling to reconcile the fragments of a life that now feels so foreign.
I try to gather my scattered thoughts, the sting of betrayal and humiliation overwhelming every fiber of my being. All the moments of struggle, the sleepless nights, the desperate attempts to hold on, now seem to dissolve into a meaningless haze. I’m numb, floating in a space where pain and confusion merge into one.
I watch silently as Eric rises, his movements coldly deliberate, as if every step away from me marks a further descent into an abyss I can’t escape. The woman follows, her presence a constant reminder of everything I’ve lost. The hospital room, once a place of healing, now feels like a prison cell for a broken soul.
In that stark, unforgiving room, I’m left to confront the truth of my shattered life. The bitter taste of betrayal lingers on my tongue, and I’m haunted by the realization that the life I once knew is irretrievably gone.
The shrill ring of my phone cuts through the heavy silence of the hospital room. My body tenses, my fingers hesitating before reaching for the device resting on the side table. The screen flashes Gerry Langston. A lump forms in my throat. I know this won’t be good. I answer, bringing the phone to my ear, bracing for impact.
“Natalia, what the hell did you do?” Gerry’s voice is razor-sharp, slicing through my already fragile state. He doesn’t even give me a second to respond before continuing, his words dripping with fury. “Edith Sinclair is gone. GONE! She walked out and took her business to Sterling & Finch this morning. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my temple throbbing with the pressure of his words. My voice comes out weak, hoarse from the oxygen mask I’d only just removed. “Gerry, I—” I swallow hard. “I was in an accident.”
He scoffs, the sound grating. “And? You think that’s an excuse? Do you know how much money you just cost this company? Do you even care?” His words hit like a slap. The man who once praised me for my work ethic, who trusted me to handle the firm’s most demanding clients, now speaks to me like I’m nothing. Like I haven’t bled for this company.
“Gerry, please—”
“No.” His voice hardens. “I don’t have time for excuses. You’re done, Natalia. Fired. Effective immediately.”
The line goes dead before I can even process his words. My hand trembles as I lower the phone, my stomach twisting into knots. Fired. After everything. After years of pulling late nights, of bending over backward to make impossible clients happy. Just like that, I’m disposable.
Before I can catch my breath, my phone rings again. Vic. A sharp pang of dread shoots through me, but I answer anyway. The moment I do, he’s already yelling. “Are you happy now, Nati? You just had to screw everything up. You just had to—”
“Shut up.” The words snap from my mouth with more force than I expect. My pulse pounds in my ears. “I don’t have time for this.” And before he can respond, I hang up. I can’t do this. Not right now. Not after everything.
The door opens, and a doctor walks in, clipboard in hand. He gives me a small, polite smile. “Ms. Herrera, how are you feeling?”
I force myself to sit up straighter, ignoring the way my body protests. “I’m fine.” The lie leaves my lips effortlessly, as if saying it enough will make it true. The doctor glances at my chart, his expression unreadable, and after a pause, he nods. “Alright,” he says before stepping out, leaving me alone with nothing but the crushing weight of disbelief.
The world was closing in around me. My chest felt tight, my breath shallow, but I couldn’t tell if it was the panic or the weight of everything crashing down at once. I gripped the thin hospital blanket in my lap, staring at the space in front of me, my mind racing with questions I didn’t have the answers to. How had it come to this? Just a few hours ago, I was Natalia Herrera—mother, wife, career woman. Now, I was being looked at like a criminal, like some junkie who had lost control.
The social worker sat across from me, her voice too soft, too understanding, like she had already decided my fate. “We’re going to start the paperwork to get you into rehab,” she said, as if this was a done deal, as if I had already agreed. I wanted to argue, to tell her that she didn’t know me, that this wasn’t fair. But the words wouldn’t come. I just nodded, too exhausted to fight.
As she left the room, I caught the way the doctor and the officer looked at me—like I was disgusting, like I was nothing. My stomach twisted, bile rising in my throat. They didn’t see a woman in pain, a woman just trying to keep her life together. They saw an addict. A liability. A disgrace.
I pushed myself up from the bed, gripping the IV stand for balance. My body ached, my neck still stiff from the brace, but I didn’t care. I needed… I needed something, anything to take the edge off, to make the screaming in my head stop. My purse sat on the chair, and with shaking hands, I rifled through it. Empty wrappers, my wallet, a pen—until my fingers brushed against the cool metal of my Altoids tin.
I knew what was inside before I even opened it. A handful of little white pills, stashed away in case of emergencies. And wasn’t this an emergency? My life was crumbling, my husband was leaving me, taking my son, and I was being carted off to rehab like some criminal. My fingers closed around the pills, gripping them so tightly my knuckles turned white.
I stumbled into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. My reflection in the mirror was unrecognizable—pale, hollow-eyed, broken. My breath came in ragged gasps as I ripped the IV from my arm, wincing as blood beaded at the site. I sank to the floor, the cold tile pressing against my bare legs, and tipped the pills into my palm.
I thought of Eric. Of the boy I had loved since middle school, the man who had once looked at me like I was his whole world. I thought of how he used to pull me close, press his lips to my forehead, whisper that he would always protect me. I thought of the day we found out I was pregnant, the way he held me and laughed, his hands shaking with excitement.
I thought of Mateo. His chubby little hands gripping mine, his giggles filling every corner of our home. The way he would run to me after daycare, arms outstretched, eyes bright with love. He needed me. He needed his mother. But what kind of mother was I now? A mother who was losing him. A mother who had failed.
Tears streamed down my face as I brought the pills to my lips. I wanted it to stop. The pain, the fear, the humiliation. I was so tired—tired of fighting, tired of being seen as something I wasn’t, tired of losing everything I had ever loved.
As I swallowed them down, one by one, a strange sense of peace settled over me. The noise in my head dulled, the ache in my chest loosening just a little. I leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling, my vision blurring.
Darkness crept at the edges of my sight, a slow, creeping tide pulling me under. I closed my eyes, letting it take me, my last thought a whisper in my mind.
I just wanted to be enough.
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