As she walked slowly out of the doctor’s room, a shadow shaded across her face. It matched the patch in her chest.

She did not want to tell them the news, share the picture buried deep in her bag. Deep in her heart she knew that she should but she was afraid that their hearts would break. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would.

For today she would keep her silence, and smile, and nod, and cough quietly into a handkerchief. For today, today, they did not need to know.

But they knew. Of course they knew. They knew it sharply deep inside of them, it cut them sharp and deep inside of them, they felt the broken glass in her breathing in their hearts.

But for today she would not tell them.