Chapter 2: The Morning After
496 Words
The suite felt colder without him.
I sat up slowly, the silky sheets slipping off my bare skin. His scent still lingered—expensive cologne and something darker, masculine and intoxicating—but the man himself was nowhere to be found.
For a full minute, I just sat there, staring at the empty space beside me.
No note. No business card. Nothing.
The only proof he’d been real was the dull ache in my body and the redness on my lips from too many kisses. I checked the bathroom, stupidly hopeful. It was spotless. The robe he’d worn the night before was folded on the edge of the tub.
I wrapped a towel around myself, my heart thudding too hard. Maybe he just stepped out for coffee. Maybe he’ll be back. I waited another ten minutes. Then fifteen. When I could no longer pretend, I dressed and gathered my things with quiet fingers.
As I stepped out of the suite, I glanced back once.
A part of me wanted to cry. Another part hated how fragile I felt.
I took the elevator down, walking past couples still sipping mimosas, women in glittering dresses with smeared lipstick and soft laughs. I was no different from them. Just another girl with a story no one would believe. A nobody who’d slept with a somebody.
Back in my apartment, reality returned like a slap.
The rent was overdue. My boss had cut my hours. My fridge held half a bottle of milk and a bruised apple. The fairy tale ended the moment I walked through my front door.
I didn’t tell Marcie. I couldn’t. She would’ve teased me or told me I was reading too much into it. That it was just a night.
So I buried it.
I told myself it didn’t matter.
Until a month passed. Then five weeks.
And suddenly, I was staring at a pregnancy test in my tiny bathroom—knees shaking, throat dry, hands frozen.
Two lines.
Not one. Two.
Positive.
I sat on the floor for what felt like hours.
It couldn’t be. I’d been careful. Hadn’t I? I was always careful. I had nothing to offer a child. No money. No stability. No idea how I’d even made it this far in life.
And yet… a heartbeat had begun inside me.
I cried until there was nothing left. Then I looked in the mirror. My reflection looked like a ghost—pale, wide-eyed, scared out of her mind.
I whispered his name once. “Damien.”
Just saying it hurt. Like reopening a wound I hadn’t allowed to heal.
I had nothing of his. No number. No company name. No social media. Just a first name and a night full of fading memories.
But I had to try.
Not because I wanted him back.
But because our child deserved to know where they came from.
Even if he never wanted to see me again.
Even if I found nothing at all.
- Writer
