He threw the bill at my face on the highway.

Derek walked in carrying flowers.

Gas station flowers — the kind wrapped in crinkled cellophane with a rubber band around the stems.

He was still wearing his black button-down from earlier in the evening, but the collar was open now and there was a long crease across the front where he had clearly been sitting in a car for hours.

His hair was damp.

He smelled like the same citrus air freshener he had sprayed at me on the highway.

He saw my father first.

Something moved across his face — not guilt, not shame, but calculation.

A rapid, invisible adjustment, like a man changing lanes without signaling.

"Robert." He extended his hand.

"Thank God she's all right.

I've been out of my mind."

My father looked at the hand.

He did not take it.

Derek let it drop.

He turned to me, and his expression shifted again — softer now, practiced, the face he used when he wanted something and knew tenderness was the faster route.

"Willow." He set the flowers on the tray table at the foot of the bed.

"Baby, I am so sorry.

I panicked.

I know that's not an excuse.

I just — I didn't realize how serious it was."

I looked at the flowers.

"You threw twenty dollars at my face," I said.

"I know." He moved toward the chair beside the bed — the one my father was sitting in.

My father did not move.

Derek stopped.

He stood at the side of the bed instead, his hands finding the bed rail, gripping it.

"I was scared and I handled it completely wrong.

I should have taken you straight to the hospital.

I know that now."

"You knew it ten days ago," I said.

"The pharmacist told you."

"Willow—"

"She said the doctor marked the prescription specifically.

You smiled at her and said I'd be fine."

His grip on the rail tightened.

"I made a mistake."

"You made a series of them," my father said.

"Deliberately."

Derek looked at him.

The calculation was back, faster this time.

"Robert, I understand you're upset.

I'm upset too.

But right now the important thing is Willow's recovery, and I think—"

"Frank." My father said the name toward the door.

A man stepped in from the hallway.

Sixty, silver-haired, carrying a leather briefcase that looked like it had attended more difficult rooms than this one.

He nodded at my father, glanced at me with a brief, professional assessment, and then looked at Derek with the particular neutrality of a man who has decided everything already.

"Derek Vale?" Frank said.

Derek turned.

"Who are you?"

"Frank Dellinger.

I represent Robert Hale and, as of an hour ago, his daughter Willow." He set the briefcase on the windowsill and opened it without ceremony.

"I need to inform you that we've begun documenting the circumstances of tonight's incident for potential civil and criminal review."

Derek's hands came off the rail.

"Criminal."

"Willful medical neglect resulting in serious bodily harm is a chargeable offense in this state," Frank said.

"The prescription record from the pharmacy has already been requested.

The ER physician has agreed to provide a written assessment of the wound's progression timeline.

The 911 call log from mile marker 45 is being pulled."

"This is insane." Derek's voice rose.

He looked at me.

"Willow, you're not actually doing this.

Tell me you're not doing this."

I said nothing.

"I am your husband."

"You told me to crawl," I said.

The room went quiet enough that the monitor's beep felt loud.

Derek straightened.

His expression changed for the third time — and this version I recognized most clearly.

It was the face he wore when he felt cornered and decided that attack was the only exit.

"You want to talk about what I said?" His voice dropped, went smooth and cold.

"Fine.

Let's talk about what you said to me last month.

Let's talk about the money you moved out of our joint account in March.

Let's talk about the calls to your father's attorney that started six weeks ago." He looked at Frank.

"Because I have records too."

Frank did not blink.

"I'd be happy to review whatever you have."

"Derek." My father's voice was quiet.

Final.

The voice from the rehearsal dinner.

"You should call your own attorney before you say anything else."

Derek stared at him.

Then he picked up the cellophane flowers from the tray table.

For one strange second I thought he was going to throw them.

Instead he held them at his side, and I watched him understand — in real time, in front of me — that the room he had walked into was not the room he had expected.

"This isn't over," he said.

"No," my father said.

"It isn't."

Derek walked out.

The door swung shut behind him.

The cellophane flowers were gone.

He had taken them with him, which somehow made it worse — the pettiness of it, the instinct even now to take back a gift that had never been given freely.

Frank closed his briefcase.

"He mentioned money moved in March," Frank said to me.

"Is that accurate?"

I looked at my father.

"Tell him," my father said gently.