Chapter 5
I stayed with my sister Ava.
She lived in a small apartment above a bakery, where the mornings smelled like warm bread and cinnamon.
It was not fancy.
It was safe.
For the first few days, I barely spoke.
Ava did not pressure me.
She made tea.
She sat beside me.
She let me cry when I needed to cry.
Then she made me eat.
“You are allowed to be devastated,” she told me. “But you are not going to disappear.”
Linda’s lawyer tried to contact me.
They said she was heartbroken.
They said she had never intended to hurt me.
They said the family wanted to resolve the matter privately.
I laughed when I read that message.
Privately.
That was what people said when they wanted pain hidden.
Officer Reyes warned me not to respond.
The prosecutor charged Linda with assault causing bodily harm and reckless endangerment.
The medical examiner’s report confirmed that trauma to my abdomen had caused the pregnancy loss.
Seeing those words in a report made me sick.
My baby became evidence.
A date.
A file number.
A case.
But I kept reminding myself why I had reported Linda.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Because she needed to be stopped.
Ethan came to Ava’s apartment one evening.
He stood in the hallway holding a box.
“I brought your things,” he said.
Inside were my books, my art supplies, and a small framed ultrasound picture.
I took it from him carefully.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
I looked at him.
“I know you are.”
“Can I fix this?”
“No.”
He started crying.
I felt sad for him.
But sadness was not the same as forgiveness.
“You need help too, Ethan,” I said. “You spent your life letting your mother decide what was true.”
“I know.”
“You have to learn to stand up to her because it is right, not because I am leaving.”
He nodded.
“I started looking for a therapist.”
“Good.”
He reached for my hand.
I did not let him take it.
“I’m filing for divorce,” I said.
His face broke.
I closed the door gently.
Then I leaned against it and cried.
May you like
Not because I had made the wrong choice.
Because the right choice was still painful.
