Your Privileges End Tonight

Natalie's POV

Victoria moved in on Thursday. By Friday morning, she had my chair.

I came downstairs with my water glass and stopped in the kitchen doorway. She sat at the end of the table where I'd sat for eight years, the seat facing the window. A pair of aluminum crutches leaned against her thigh.

She was wearing my cream cable-knit cardigan. The one I'd left folded on the bench at the foot of our bed.

Two cups of coffee steamed on the table, already poured. A plate of eggs and fruit sat in front of her. Alex stood behind her chair with a bread knife, cutting her toast into small, neat squares.

The only empty seat was the one by the wall, pushed in, with nothing in front of it.

I remembered the morning after my fifth egg retrieval. I'd been bent half over in the clinic lobby, cramping so hard I couldn't stand up straight. I called Alex, and he told me he had a department meeting. *Just grab an Uber, Nat. You'll be fine.*

I'd thrown up in the back of a stranger's Camry on the way home.

Now he was cutting the crusts off her toast.

Victoria looked up and smiled. "Oh, Natalie. Alex says you don't eat breakfast anymore. I hope you don't mind me taking your seat."

"That's my sweater," I said.

"Is it?" She touched the collar like she was only now noticing it. "It was on the bench, and I was freezing. Alex said you wouldn't care."

Alex didn't look up from the toast. "It's a sweater, Natalie."

I let it go, because the alternative was ripping it off her in front of him. I walked to the fridge to check the injections scheduled to start tomorrow.

The plastic bin was gone.

I kept it on the second shelf, always. Clear lid, labeled in my handwriting. Pens, vials, the trigger shot I'd need in less than two weeks if cycle seven ever started. I moved the milk and the orange juice. Nothing.

"Where's my medication?"

"Oh, that." Victoria pointed her fork toward the back door. "I moved it. I hope that's okay."

A cardboard box sat on the floor beside the trash bag, flaps open. My bin was inside, tipped on its side, the lid cracked. Some of my vials had rolled loose into the corner of the box.

"Those have to stay refrigerated," I said, already on my knees gathering them. "Some of these cost four hundred dollars each."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." She sighed softly. "It's just that seeing all those needles every time I opened the fridge was kind of depressing. My therapist says a calm environment is really important for healing."

I put the vials back in the bin and stood up. When I turned around, she had my treatment calendar in her lap.

I'd left it on the counter with the folders. Four years of appointments, shot times, and blood draws, written in three colors of ink. She'd dog-eared one of the pages.

My cycle folders were stacked beside her plate. She'd fanned them out. *Cycle 1* through *Cycle 6*, each with its date label on the spine.

"Six failed treatments?" Her voice was gentle, almost kind. "Natalie, maybe your body is trying to tell you something."

The kitchen went quiet.

I hadn't told her six. I'd never told her anything. At every dinner party, every birthday, I'd changed the subject when someone asked when we were having kids. Even my sister didn't know about cycle five.

But Victoria knew the number exactly.

Alex had told her. Every negative test, every cramp on the bathroom floor. He'd taken the most private thing I had and handed it to her like gossip.

All those nights he said he was working late. All those times his phone was face down. This was what they'd been talking about. Me.

I crossed the kitchen and took the folders out of her hands. Then the calendar.

"Don't touch my medical records. Ever."

My fingers closed so hard around the calendar that the pages crumpled.

Victoria's face crumpled with them. She grabbed the edge of the table and then her knee, her voice shaking.

"Ow. Ow, I just twisted it, I'm sorry, I was only trying to understand—"

Alex was between us before she finished. He set the bread knife down and put himself in front of her chair, his body blocking her from me like I was something dangerous.

"What is your problem? Why do you always have to make someone who's recovering feel like garbage?"

"She threw my medication in a box next to the garbage."

"She moved it."

"She read my records, Alex. And she already knew what was in them." I looked past his shoulder at her, then back at him. "Because you told her."

He didn't deny it. He didn't even blink.

"She asked how you were doing. I answered."

"You answered with six failed cycles."

Victoria held onto the back of the chair and whispered, "Alex, it's fine, I'll go lie down."

"Stay," he told her. Then, to me: "She's a guest in this house."

"Fine. She can have the guest room. I cleared it for her. But she doesn't get to go through my things. She doesn't get to throw out my medicine. And she doesn't get my clothes."

He rubbed his forehead like I was giving him a migraine.

"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to put the pill boxes, the needles, the folders, all of it, somewhere upstairs. In a closet. Somewhere no one has to look at it."

I stared at him. "It's my medicine."

"It's everywhere, Natalie. It's on the counter. It's in the fridge. It's taped to the cabinet." His voice rose. "Our whole house has revolved around your infertility for years. Enough is enough."

Behind him, Victoria lowered her eyes to her plate. I saw the corner of her mouth move before she pressed it flat.

I took the folders upstairs. Not because he told me to. Because I didn't want her touching them again. I put the medication back in the refrigerator and called the pharmacy to check whether it was still safe.

The invitation came at three that afternoon.

A courier delivered it to the door in a heavy envelope. Alex opened it at the kitchen island and slid the card across to Victoria, who'd spent the afternoon on our couch under my throw blanket.

Champagne-gold cardstock, thick as a credit card. The lettering was raised gold foil.

*A Celebration of Victoria's Recovery.*

*Saturday evening, seven o'clock. Riverside Country Club.*

*Hosted by Dr. Alex Carter.*

Her family wasn't hosting. He was.

Below it, in matching foil, their names sat side by side. *Victoria Hale & Alex Carter.* Like a wedding announcement.

Victoria ran her finger over the raised letters, then looked up at him with shining eyes.

"Alex. It's beautiful." She hesitated. "Tomorrow night, can we tell everyone? Officially, I mean. About us."

I waited for him to laugh. To say *What are you talking about?* To say anything.

He didn't. He looked at me instead, steady and tired, like I was the problem he had left to manage.

"I hope you can be mature about this, Natalie."

So it was true. Every late night. Every face-down phone. He wasn't even going to pretend anymore.

I set the invitation down on the island, face up, their gold names catching the light. Then I picked up my phone and opened the fertility center's patient portal.

Evening consultations. Saturday, 6:30 p.m. One slot left.

I booked it. The confirmation popped up a second later. *Appointment confirmed: Natalie Carter — Embryo Consultation.*

I turned the screen so he could see it.

"I'm not coming to celebrate the woman you bought with our future."

Alex's eyes dropped to the word *Embryo*.

For the first time all day, the color left his face.