My ex.
My devil, my problem, the man who liked fear because it kept me quiet.
And now I’m pregnant.
My hands start shaking. Not cute trembling. Real shaking, up through my wrists into my elbows, and it doesn’t stop.
I grab the counter, then force myself to move.
Screenshot everything. The texts. The number. The pizza box. The note. I take photos like I’m building a case file because I don’t know what else to build.
Then I stand in my kitchen and look at the pregnancy test again, still sitting there in plain sight.
I think about Ethan, and I think about the rumor machine, and I think about a man who sends a pizza to remind me he can reach me anytime he wants.
I can’t do this in the middle.
I can’t be the rope in a tug-of-war between powerful men and petty monsters.
And I can’t let my baby be born into a life where I’m always waiting for the next doorbell.
So I do the only thing that has ever kept me alive.
I run.
I open my laptop and typeFlightswith hands that don’t stop shaking until I press them flat against the keyboard and force them to behave.
One-way. Earliest departure. Any airline. Any gate.
I pick an airport with too many terminals and too many crowds. I pick a city I have no business going to, because predictability is a gift I’m not handing him.
The price is painful. I buy it anyway.
Confirmation number. Boarding time.
My breathing goes shallow, so I sit on the edge of the couch and inhale slow until my lungs remember how to work.
Then I pack fast.
Jeans. Hoodies. Sneakers. Charger. Passport. Cash. My work laptop because leaving it feels like leaving a trail, but taking it means I can still work, and work means I can still pay rent somewhere else.
I grab the positive test and shove it into a zip pouch because I can’t bear to part with it. As I’m washing up, my phone lights up with Ethan’s name, and my chest does that warm, stupid squeeze that makes me want to cry, which is also unfair.
I don’t answer. If I tell him I’m pregnant, he will come for me, and he will mean well, and he will turn this into a fight he can win, and the kind of man who sends “I see you” doesn’t lose fights quietly.
I type a message anyway, my thumb hovering over send.
I’m okay. I need space. Please don’t come to my apartment.
I add the truth, then delete it, then add it again, then delete it again, because I can’t decide whether telling him is protection or gasoline.
The doorbell doesn’t ring again, but I don’t relax. I move through my apartment as if I’m being watched, lights on, curtains stilldrawn, keys clenched in my fist as if they’re a weapon, as I work on organizing movers to come by and pack and move everything left behind into a storage unit.
When my rideshare arrives, I shoulder my duffel, lock my door, then lock it again, then walk down the stairs because I refuse to be trapped in an elevator right now.
Outside, pass. People walk their dogs. Nobody looks at me as if my world just changed.
I slide into the back seat and lock the door with my thumb.