The chill of the silk sheets offered no comfort tonight. Four years. Four years of marriage to Nicholas, four years of empty promises whispered into the silence of this vast bedroom. I traced the intricate pattern of the duvet with my finger, a familiar ache settling in my chest. All I ever wanted was a child, a tiny echo of our love to fill these quiet halls.

He had always been distant, affectionate in public, but withdrawn behind closed doors. I’d convinced myself it was just him, his nature. He wasn’t interested in sex, I’d rationalized, burying the pang of loneliness deep down.

Then, the doctor's words had cut through the carefully constructed peace of my world like a scalpel. Clinical, detached, yet devastating: "The patient has an anal fissure, caused by sexual intercourse."

The patient was his sister. Not by blood, but by a bond I now understood to be far darker than I’d ever imagined. My heart, a heavy stone, sank to the very pit of my stomach, dragging every last shard of my naive hope with it. The room, once a sanctuary, now felt like a cage.