I Left the Old Love Behind

For seven years Anna has stood beside Lucas Whitman, even as he indulged his childhood friend Lila Grant, who once wagered on Anna's peanut allergy for a hundred grand. On the morning Anna is finally to bring Lucas home to meet her mother, Margaret Moore, she grabs a clear candy to steady her dropping blood sugar. It is peanut candy. Lucas pays Lila without a word, coldly telling Anna to control her greedy mouth.

Waking in the hospital, Anna sees a photo of Lila feeding her mother the same candy. She tears out her IV and runs, barefoot, calling Lucas again and again; he turns his phone off. At home her mother seems fine, until she stiffens and convulses, red rashes spreading. Lila whispers that she poured peanut crumbs into Margaret's milk.

When Lucas chooses to carry Lila away, Anna tells him that if he walks out the door, they are over. In the ambulance her vision goes black. She wakes to the smell of disinfectant and learns her mother is in emergency resuscitation, with no one to sign the surgery consent form.