The aftermath. She read countless stories and treated countless patients… They all told her the same thing: It's painful. You'll hate yourself after it. It's the worst kind of self-loathing you can possibly feel. She believed them. But she didn't know. Because believing was very different from knowing.

She took the subway home. Riding the subway wasn't her favorite, but if she used the car, Mark would notice. So she road the subway. She kept her head down the whole ride home in the irrational fear that somebody would notice. Or care. She didn't want anyone to care. She didn't deserve their care.

Then again, it was the subway, so almost no one cared or noticed in the first place. She got out at her stop. She walked briskly with her head up high. She would not let the pain affect her until she got home.

The duration of the twenty-minute walk between the subway and home seemed to go on forever. She refused to let any thought enter her head. She was numb.

The brownstone was empty. Thank god. Mark had some business to attend to. It was why she chose today to be the day. She broke down the minute she got in. Her sobs seemed to echo across the vast hallways. She made her way upstairs. Collapsed on the bed.

The emptiness scared her like nothing else.

The bed. The bed where everything happened. Everything. From the beginning of this whole mess. She stood up and tore away all the expensive Egyptian sheets from the bed. She needed to clean.

She hated cleaning. Yet now she was methodically, and somehow frantically cleaning. Cleaning and sobbing. What had she turned into? Her stomach cramped. She stopped cleaning. She let herself fall to the floor. "Fuck!" She screamed. No one was there to hear her.

She knew exactly what she was supposed to do after the procedure, but she couldn't bring herself to rest. She didn't deserve rest. She was dirty, and awful, and mostly a mess. She wondered what would happen if her colleagues could see her now. She figured they wouldn't respect her anymore. It wasn't a big deal. She didn't respect herself anymore.

When she got into the shower, she really started mourning. She mourned for her loss… What never was. What never would be. What would always haunt her. And she cried. She had never cried so hard in her life.

Usually the steam helped her calm down. Now it just made her angry. She was trying to rid herself of the dirtiness that she deserved. She took another breath. She scrubbed her bare skin until it was raw.

After her shower, she lay in the guest bed, curled up into a little ball. The guest bedroom would've been a nursery. She imagined the crib. The soft pastels on the walls. The numerous toys.

She could imagine the inhabitant of the room. Small. Innocent. Loved.

She was disgusted.