And there they are. A tiny, curled-up little shapeless blob, who’s impossibly small. My baby.

My chest rises, falls. Too fast. Too shallow.

It doesn’t seem real. At the center, the heartbeat pulses in a quiet, unwavering rhythm—constant, certain, alive.

The shift inside me is strange, doesn’t feel like peace or safety, more like . . . acceptance. This is really happening. I’m going to be a mother. My stomach twists, bile creeping up my throat because this might be my baby, but it’s also Winston’s.

Chapter Fifteen

Henrietta (Blythe)

Just thinking about how the kid was conceived—of who the father is . . . it cracks something open inside me. Splinters through my ribs, crawls up my throat, squeezes until my vision blurs.

The clinic walls are closing in. The air feels too thick, pressing against my skin, making it impossible to pull in a full breath. My heartbeat thrums wildly, loud enough to drown out everything else. Or maybe that’s not my heart—it’s the sound of the monitor, the rhythmic whoosh-whoosh-whoosh looping through my head like an alarm I can’t turn off.

My baby.

Mine, but also Winston’s child.

The words don’t settle right. They don’t belong to me alone. They belong to someone else, too. And yet, I’m the one laying here, trapped under the enormity of it. I should feel something—joy, relief, hope. Anything but this crushing sense of finality.

It’s no longer a distant problem I can shove to the back of my mind, something I can file under deal with later. Yes, I knew I would have a baby, that the cost was going to be stratospheric, but actually acknowledging what will happen the baby is born . . . my mind hadn’t caught up with that. But it’s happening. It’s real.

And I have no idea if I can do this.

If I can love a child, who will forever remind me of the worst part of my life.

Simone’s voice is just noise in the background, muffled and distant. Instructions about follow-ups, prenatal vitamins, nausea remedies. Atlas is the one responding, like a doting husband whose concern about my wellbeing. I can’t even register what he’s saying. My skin prickles, too tight, too hot. My pulse skitters wildly, a runaway thing I can’t control.

I need to get out.

I push off the exam table too fast. The floor shifts, the walls tilt—like the whole room is moving without me. My stomach lurches in protest.

Atlas moves before I can even register what’s happening, his hands catching my arms, warm and solid, like he knew I’d stumble before I did.

“Whoa, easy.” His voice is low, threaded with something softer. “You okay, babe?”