The morning arrived gray and without mercy, thin light pressing through Zara's curtains like it wasn't entirely committed to the effort. She woke with her hand already resting over her stomach, the way it had begun doing on its own while she slept, as if her body had made decisions her mind was still catching up to.
Nausea greeted her immediately. Not violent. Just persistent, rolling through her in slow, insistent waves that she breathed through with her eyes closed and her jaw set, waiting it out the way you wait out something you have no power to argue with.
Six weeks and three days, she reminded herself. Still early. Still hers alone.
She made it to the bathroom, ran cold water over her wrists, and looked at her reflection. Her skin had that glow that pregnancy books apparently desc
