Chapter3:Two Pink Lines
1136 Words
Three weeks had passed since the night Ethan pulled me out of the storm, brought me to his luxury penthouse, and vanished from my life.
I was living in a quiet, low-rent studio apartment three states away, using a portion of the money he had left in the black leather
folder to cover my deposit and basic groceries.
For twenty-one days, I had woken up without the suffocating weight of fear pressing against my ribs. I could sit by the window, hold a mug of warm tea, and breathe without bracing for the sound of harsh shouting or violent footfalls outside my door.
For the first time in my existence, I was learning what safety felt like.
Then, my own body turned against me.
It started as a subtle, disorienting tilt in the room whenever I stood up from my chair. I blamed it on poor sleep or low iron. But on a gray, drizzly Tuesday morning, I woke up with my mouth watering with a bitter, metallic taste. My stomach twisted violently inside out.
I barely made it to the cramped bathroom before dropping to my hands and knees over the cold porcelain bowl, retching until my throat burned and cold sweat plastered my damp hair to my forehead.
I sat back against the bathroom tile, shivering in my thin cotton nightshirt, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
It’s just a stomach bug, I told myself, staring blankly at the stained ceiling tiles. It’s just my body coming down from years of living in survival mode.
I didn't want to think about the alternative. I didn't want to think about that single, breathless night in the high-rise—held in warm, powerful arms that made me feel protected for the first time in my life.
Twenty minutes later, I walked down the street to the local pharmacy. The chilly morning rain drizzled over my cheap coat, but my cheeks burned hot.
Inside the quiet shop, I carried a small paper bag containing two different pregnancy test boxes to the front register. The woman behind the counter was older, wearing a soft pink cardigan. She scanned the boxes, looked at my pale, trembling face, and offered a soft, motherly smile.
"Hoping for good news, sweetheart?" she asked gently.
My chest tightened so hard I couldn't speak. I couldn't form a single word. I simply shoved a twenty-dollar bill across the counter, grabbed the paper bag before she could offer my change, and walked quickly back out into the rain.
Back inside my studio, I didn't set a timer on my phone. I couldn't bear the thought of a clock ticking down the moments of my current life.
I sat on the slippery edge of the bathtub, my fingernails digging hard into the stiff denim of my jeans. I stared down at the worn floorboards, my chest heaving with shallow, rapid breaths.
Just give me a year, I prayed silently into the empty room. Please, just give me six months to figure out how to be a normal person first.
When I finally forced myself to stand up and lean over the white porcelain sink, my knees almost buckled beneath me.
Two dark pink lines on the first test strip.
Two dark pink lines on the second.
The room didn't spin; it went completely, deafeningly quiet.
A heavy, suffocating numbness froze me from the inside out. I backed away from the sink step-by-step until my spine slammed into the bathroom wall, and then I slid down to the cold floor tiles, pulling my knees tight against my chest.
Ethan.
His name hit my mind like a physical blow. What was I supposed to do now? Call him? He was a billionaire corporate executive living in an elite world of unfathomable power and wealth.
What if he thought this was an extortion attempt? What if he thought I was trying to trap him? Or worse—what if he used his lawyers and vast fortune to take the baby away from me because I had nothing to my name?
"I can't do this," I whispered aloud, my voice breaking in the dark room as a single, icy tear slipped down my cheek. "I don't even know how to take care of myself."
I had grown up in a house where love was something paid for in bruises and harsh words. I didn't know how mothers spoke to their children when they were happy.
I didn't know how to raise a child without constant fear, because fear was the only language I had ever been taught to speak.
I sat on that bathroom floor for nearly an hour, listening to the rain tap against the glass window.
Slowly, without me consciously deciding to move, my right hand slipped under the hem of my sweater, resting flat and still over my lower stomach.
It didn't feel like a miracle. It felt terrifying and unimaginably heavy. But under the natural warmth of my own fingers, a reality existed that I couldn't run from.
A tiny life was growing. It hadn't asked to be created in the middle of a storm, and it hadn't chosen an abusive background or a powerful stranger for a father.
It wasn't the baby's fault.
I used the edge of the sink to pull myself to my feet, staring at my pale reflection in the mirror. Dark shadows sat under my eyes, but I was still standing.
"I'm terrified," I admitted softly to the mirror, taking one long, shaky breath into my lungs. "I don't know what I'm doing. But I won't run away from you."
I walked over to the small nightstand, picked up the black burner phone Ethan had left beside the cash envelope three weeks ago, and dialed his private number with trembling fingers.
I lifted the receiver to my ear, waiting for his deep, commanding voice to pick up.
Ring... Ring...
"We are sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service or has been disconnected."
My hand went entirely limp, the phone slipping from my fingers and clattering onto the hardwood floor.
He had moved on. He was back in his high-powered world, and I was just a night he had erased. I was completely, entirely alone.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, pressing my hand flat against my stomach, trying to pull my scattered thoughts together.
That was when my eyes fell on the small black envelope Ethan had left beside the phone—and the folded piece of paper tucked deep inside that I hadn't noticed until right now.
I reached out with a trembling hand and pulled the paper into the light.
Written at the bottom, in heavy, precise black ink, was a single handwritten note that made my blood run completely cold.
- Writer
