Chapter 3 The pregnancy

Weeks passed.

Helen hadn't meant for that night with Sebastian to linger. It was supposed to be a moment-fleeting, reckless, a balm on an open wound. But the memory clung to her skin like the scent of his cologne on her pillow the next morning. Subtle. Lingering. Impossible to forget.

Then the sickness began.

At first, she blamed stress. She started Skipping meals. She also started having Sleepless nights. But the nausea persisted-morning after morning, like clockwork. The realization came slowly, then all at once, curling around her like panic wrapped in quiet dread.

A pregnancy test confirmed what her body already knew.

She was pregnant.

She stared at the faint pink lines, heart pounding, lips parting in disbelief. A hollow laugh escaped her throat-part wonder, part terror.

Sebastian. A stranger, really. A name. A night. A memory. But now-connected to her in the most permanent way imaginable.

She sat in silence for hours, cradling the test in her hands like a relic. Shame nipped at the edges of her mind-this wasn't planned. It wasn't right. And yet, somewhere beneath the confusion, beneath the fear, there was a tiny flicker of something else.

Hope.

She thought of Steven then-not with longing, but with clarity. She remembered Valerie's perfume lingering in their bedroom. The way Steven had become a ghost in his own home long before he physically left it. He hadn't broken her heart in one sharp moment. He'd eroded it, piece by piece.

But Sebastian-he had looked at her like she was still whole.

She didn't tell him right away. She wasn't sure how. But his number sat in her phone with unanswered messages staring back at her with quiet patience.

Sebastian: I keep thinking about you. Hope you're okay.

Sebastian: If you want space, I'll give it. Just... don't disappear. Please.

Those words stayed with her.

Eventually, she met him again. In the same bar. Different night. Different version of herself.

She didn't tell him everything-not yet. But she saw the same storm in his eyes, the same gentleness beneath the steel. And something new: a lightness. Like he'd been holding his breath and exhaled when he saw her walk through the door.

Over coffee the next morning, she finally said it.

"I'm pregnant."

The words trembled as they left her mouth. She braced for shock, for denial, for panic.

But Sebastian didn't flinch.

He reached across the table, his hand resting over hers.

"i will be with you and stay by you no matter what ," he said simply.

She felt something growing inside her, it was no longer a mistake. It was a beginning.

---

Helen's pregnancy was already due for delivery and she was taken to the hospital.In the hospital the sterile scent of antiseptic filled the hospital corridor. Beeping machines, muffled voices, and rushing footsteps echoed around the maternity wing. Outside the delivery room, Sebastian paced, his jaw clenched, hands trembling slightly despite the calm expression he wore for Helen's sake.

Inside, she fought through the final waves of pain, her brow slick with sweat, her hands gripping the sheets. Labor had been long, exhausting, but she'd been strong. Determined. She was bringing something new into the world-something untainted by betrayal. Something real.

"You're almost there," the nurse encouraged. "One more push."

Helen gritted her teeth and pushed with everything she had. A cry pierced the air, sharp and pure. The sound brought immediate tears to her eyes.

"It's a girl," the nurse announced, holding up a tiny, wriggling form. "A healthy baby girl."

Helen collapsed back against the pillow, her heart soaring. Her daughter. Hers and Sebastian's. The beginning of something better.

Sebastian entered moments later, his face lit up with awe and disbelief. He leaned over, brushing hair from Helen's forehead, then stared down at the baby in the nurse's arms.

"She's perfect," he whispered.

But elsewhere in the same hospital, pain had taken a crueler form.

Valerie's screams had ended minutes ago, replaced by a silence that hung in the room like a fog. Her face was pale, twisted in disbelief. Kenneth stood by her bed, arms crossed tightly, lips pressed in a thin line.

The doctor, an older man with a lined face and tired eyes, held the lifeless form of Valerie's baby. A stillborn.

"She's gone," he said quietly.

Valerie turned her face away, burying it into her hands as her body shook with silent sobs. Kenneth didn't move. He only looked at the doctor.

"You know what to do," Kenneth said in a low voice.

The doctor hesitated. "Are you sure about this?"

Kenneth pulled out a check folded neatly in half and handed it over. "Fifty thousand. As agreed. No one else knows. Steven isn't here. And neither is the father of Helen's baby."

The doctor stared at the check, then at the lifeless form in his arms. A moment passed. Then he nodded.

Later that evening, when Helen was resting, exhausted but at peace, a nurse entered the room with a bundle wrapped in pink. "Here she is, Mama," the nurse said with a smile.

Helen opened her arms without hesitation.

She held the baby close, her heart aching with love. But something-something in the way the infant lay so still, something in her quietness-made Helen pause. The baby wasn't crying. Wasn't fussing. Just...silent.

"She's just tired," the nurse said quickly, seeing Helen's confusion. "Some babies are like that."

Helen nodded slowly, brushing her fingers against the child's cheek. "She's beautiful."

Sebastian stood by the window, watching over both of them. He didn't see the nurse's glance-quick and nervous-toward the door. He didn't notice the way the doctor passed by a few moments later and avoided eye contact.

And no one noticed Kenneth, watching from down the hall, hands in his pockets, satisfaction darkening his expression.

The baby in Helen's arms wasn't hers.The truth was buried that night-under hospital charts, under shadows, under silence.

A secret held only by three: Kenneth, Valerie, and the doctor.A secret worth fifty thousand dollars.And a secret that, one day, would shatter everything.

---

It wasn't the silence that gave it away.

It was the stillness.

Helen held the baby in her arms, studying the tiny face-too pale, too quiet. No soft cooing. No movement. Just silence. The nurse's reassuring smile faltered when she looked closer and saw the panic blooming in Helen's eyes.

"She's not..." Helen whispered, her voice cracking. "She's not breathing."

Sebastian moved quickly to the bedside, his face draining of color. "What do you mean? She-she cried. I heard her cry."

The nurse's expression shifted-confusion turning to alarm. She gently took the baby from Helen's arms and rushed out without a word.

Helen's chest tightened, panic rising into a scream she didn't recognize as her own. "Sebastian-what's happening?"

He pulled her into his arms, holding her close, rocking gently as though trying to keep her from unraveling.

Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. When the doctor returned, his face was already carved with rehearsed sorrow.

"I'm sorry," he said gently. "There were complications. She didn't make it."

Helen shattered.

Her cries echoed down the corridor, a sound no mother should ever have to make. She clutched her stomach, hollow now, empty in more ways than one. Sebastian sat beside her, his face pale and wet with silent tears, holding her hand as if afraid she would slip away too.

"It's not fair," she whispered. "I carried her. I waited. I dreamed."

"I know," Sebastian said hoarsely, voice breaking. "I know."

He didn't try to fix it. Didn't offer false hope or tired phrases. He just stayed-with her, in the dark, in the pain.

In the days that followed, Helen barely left her bed. The world outside kept turning, oblivious to her loss. Flowers arrived. Cards. Quiet condolences from people who didn't understand.

But then came Anita.

Then Elizabeth.

Then Lilian.

Three women who knew how to hold grief like a sister. They didn't flood her with advice. They didn't tell her to be strong. They sat with her, cried with her, made her tea she didn't drink, and sometimes-just made her laugh. Soft, tired laughter that reminded her she was still alive.

"You don't have to move on," Anita said one day, her voice firm but kind. "You just have to move. One breath. One step."

"She was real," Elizabeth said. "And she mattered."

"You'll never be the same," Lilian added, brushing Helen's hair from her face. "But you'll survive this. Because that's what we do. We survive."

Sebastian never left. He stayed through the worst of it-quietly helping, silently hurting, always present. His grief was different, but real. He had dreamed, too.

And slowly, Helen began to rise.

Not healed. Not whole. But standing.

She began to walk through her days again. She returned to the bar once, to the very corner where she'd met him. And there, for a moment, she remembered joy. Hope. Love.

The pain still lived inside her, but so did strength.

And in time, she would uncover the truth.

But for now-she mourned.

And she survived.