The rain hadn’t stopped since morning. It drummed against the tin roof of her small apartment, soft but relentless, seeping into everything — her thoughts, her bones, the silence.
Aria sat by the window, one hand pressed absently against her stomach, watching the gray world outside blur and ripple. The nausea had eased that day, but the exhaustion clung to her like damp clothes.
She had been doing double shifts at the café for a week straight, saving every coin she could. Every night she came home sore and quiet, counting what little she had, whispering to the tiny life inside her that things would somehow get better. But even lies required energy, and she had little left.
When the knock came, she almost didn’t move. It came again — hesitant but steady.
She sighed, pushing herself up a
