Consequences

**Colette**

Three months later, I stood in my tiny bathroom staring at the pregnancy test in my shaking hands. Two pink lines. Clear as day. Mocking me.

This couldn't be happening.

I'd taken three tests already. All positive. My period was six weeks late. I'd been throwing up every morning for two weeks straight. Deep down, I already knew the truth before I bought the tests. I just didn't want to believe it.

I sank down onto the closed toilet seat, the test still clutched in my hand. My mind raced through the timeline. Three months ago.

I'd tried so hard to forget. Threw myself into my classes, worked extra shifts at my part-time job, avoided Owen and Sienna like they didn't exist. I almost convinced myself it was just a bad dream, a mistake I could bury and never think about again.

But now this. A baby. Growing inside me. Proof that night really happened.

I pressed my free hand against my still-flat stomach. There was a person in there. A tiny human who didn't ask to be created during the worst night of my life.

The thought made me sick all over again. I barely made it to the toilet before throwing up, my body rejecting the crackers I'd managed to eat that morning.

When the nausea finally passed, I sat on the bathroom floor and let myself cry. Real, ugly crying that I'd been holding back for months. Everything was falling apart. My family's company was struggling after some scandal broke last month-I didn't understand all the details, but Dad had stopped taking my calls. My grades were slipping. I was barely making rent.

And now I was pregnant with a stranger's baby.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a text from my roommate asking if I was okay. I'd been in here for almost an hour.

"Fine," I typed back. "Just sick."

Not a lie. Just not the whole truth.

I needed to think. I needed a plan. But first, I needed to know for sure. Home pregnancy tests could be wrong, right? Maybe this was all some horrible mistake.

***

The clinic waiting room smelled like antiseptic and fear. I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair, filling out forms with information I barely remembered. Date of last period. Sexual history. Medical conditions.

None of it felt real.

"Colette Etienne?" A nurse called my name.

I followed her to a small exam room where she took my blood and asked me more questions I didn't want to answer. When was I last sexually active? Was I in a relationship? Did I know the father?

"It was one time," I said quietly. “It was… it was my ex-boyfriend.”

The nurse's expression didn't change but I saw something flash in her eyes. Pity, maybe. Or judgment. I couldn't tell which was worse.

"The doctor will be in shortly," she said, leaving me alone.

I sat on the exam table, my legs dangling, staring at the posters on the wall about prenatal vitamins and warning signs of pregnancy complications. This was my life now. Prenatal care. Baby planning. Single motherhood at twenty-three.

The door opened and Dr. Chen came in with a warm smile. She was middle-aged with kind eyes that made me want to cry again.

"So," she said, looking at my chart. "Your blood test confirms it. You're pregnant. About ten weeks along based on your last period."

Ten weeks. Two and a half months. Almost the whole first trimester already gone.

"Are you sure?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

"Very sure. Your hormone levels are exactly where they should be for this stage." She pulled up an ultrasound machine. "Would you like to see?"

I nodded because what else could I do? She squeezed cold gel on my stomach and pressed the wand against my skin. The screen showed a grainy black and white image that looked like nothing to me.

"There," Dr. Chen pointed. "See that flutter? That's the heartbeat."

And there it was. A tiny rapid pulse on the screen. My baby's heart beating.

Something broke inside me then. This was real. This was actually happening.

"Is everything... is the baby okay?" I heard myself ask.

"Perfectly healthy from what I can see. Strong heartbeat, good development for ten weeks." She smiled at me. "Congratulations."

Congratulations. Like this was good news. Like I had any idea how to raise a child when I could barely take care of myself.

Dr. Chen must have seen something on my face because her expression softened. "Do you have questions about your options?"

Options. Right. I didn't have to go through with this. I could end it before it went any further. Before the baby became more real than a flutter on a screen.

"I need time to think," I said.

She nodded and printed out several papers for me-information about prenatal care, abortion services, adoption agencies. All my choices laid out in black and white.

I left the clinic in a daze, clutching the papers against my chest. The afternoon sun felt too bright after the dim exam room. People walked past me on the sidewalk, going about their normal lives while mine fell apart.

My phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw my dad's name. Finally calling me back after three weeks of silence.

"Hello?"

"Colette." His voice sounded tired and old. "I need to talk to you about something."

"What's wrong?"

"The company... we're filing for bankruptcy. It's over."

I stopped walking right there in the middle of the sidewalk. "What? Dad, what happened?"

"Bad investments. Fraud charges from a competitor. It's complicated." He sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know you were counting on us to help with your tuition next semester."

No. No, this couldn't be happening too. Not now. Not on top of everything else.

"Dad, I-"

"I have to go. The lawyers are here. I'll call you when I can."

He hung up before I could say anything else. I stood there on the sidewalk, people flowing around me like water around a rock, and felt the last piece of my old life crumble away.

No boyfriend. No family support. No financial security. And a baby on the way that I couldn't afford to keep.

But the baby was Owen's. He deserved to know. And maybe—just maybe—he would help. Not for me, but for his child. Even if he didn't want me anymore, surely he wouldn't abandon his own baby. At the very least, the child could grow up with the advantages Owen's wealth could provide.

I had to try. For the baby's sake, if not my own.

Three days later

I waited outside Owen's office building, my hands wrapped around a now-cold coffee I couldn't bring myself to drink. Morning sickness had been brutal, but I'd forced myself here. This was my last chance—for my father's company, for the baby, for any semblance of the future I'd imagined.

When Owen finally emerged, Sienna was on his arm, laughing at something he'd said. The sight of them together still hurt, but I pushed past it.

"Owen, please. I need to talk to you."

He looked at me with something close to annoyance. "Colette. I thought I made myself clear—"

"I'm pregnant." The words burst out of me, desperate. "It's yours. From that night at the hotel. I know things are complicated between us, but the baby—our baby—deserves better than this. My father's company is failing, and I just need—"

Owen's expression shifted from annoyance to something cold and cutting. He laughed. Actually laughed.

"Pregnant? And you think it's mine?" He exchanged a glance with Sienna, who smirked. "Colette, I've never set foot in whatever hotel you're talking about. You really think you can trap me like this?"

The ground seemed to tilt beneath me. "What? No, you were there. That night, you—"

"I was in Singapore that week for business. I have records, witnesses, flight manifests." His voice was ice. "You clearly slept with someone, but it wasn't me. And trying to pin some random man's baby on me? That's pathetic, even for you."

"But... I thought..." My voice cracked. The memories felt so clear—calling his name, believing he'd come for me.

"You thought wrong." He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a cruel whisper. "And about your father's company? That bankruptcy wasn't random bad luck, Colette. I helped orchestrate it. Your father made the mistake of crossing the wrong people, and I made sure he paid for it. So no—I won't be helping you. Not now, not ever."

The world crashed down around me. Owen walked away with Sienna, leaving me standing there, shaking.

I don't know how I made it home. Everything felt distant, unreal.

If Owen was in Singapore... if he was never at the hotel...

Then who?

I sat on my bathroom floor, trying desperately to remember that night. The blonde woman at the bar. The drinks. The room spinning. A man in the darkness—I'd been so sure it was Owen. I'd called his name. But the scars on his back, the height, the way he'd felt...

Oh god. It hadn't been Owen at all.

Some stranger. Some random man I couldn't even remember clearly. And now I was carrying his child.

My father's company was gone—destroyed by Owen's betrayal. I had no money, no support, no future. And a baby growing inside me that was the product of one horrible, drugged, confused night with a man whose face I couldn't even recall.

I pulled out my phone with trembling hands and found the number for the clinic.

"Women's Health Services, how can I help you?"

"I need to schedule an appointment," I whispered, my voice breaking. "For a termination."

Three days until the appointment

I moved through the hours like a ghost. My roommate asked if I was okay. I said I had the flu. She kept her distance.

The night before my appointment, I lay in bed with my hand pressed against my stomach. Too early to feel anything, but I knew the baby was there. That tiny, impossible heartbeat.

"I'm sorry," I whispered into the darkness. "I don't even know who your father is. I can't give you anything—not security, not a family, not even a name. I can barely take care of myself."

Tears soaked into my pillow. Tomorrow it would be over. Tomorrow I could start trying to piece together what was left of my shattered life. Forget that night. Forget the stranger. Forget everything.

I fell asleep still crying and dreamed of a baby I would never meet.

***

The clinic was quiet when I arrived the next morning. The receptionist checked me in with a sympathetic smile. A nurse led me to a changing room where I put on a hospital gown.

"The doctor will be in shortly to explain the procedure," she said. "Do you have any questions?"

A million questions. But none that she could answer.

"No," I said.

She left me alone in the small pre-op room. I sat on the edge of the bed, my bare feet cold against the tile floor. This was it. Last chance to change my mind.

But I couldn't. I had no money, no support, no way to care for a baby. This was the only choice that made sense.

The door suddenly burst open with a bang that made me jump. Men in black suits rushed in-three, four, maybe five of them. I screamed but one of them grabbed me, pressing a cloth against my face.

The chemical smell hit me and the world tilted sideways. Not again, my mind screamed. Not drugs again.

"No-" I tried to fight but my limbs went heavy.

Through blurring vision, I saw someone in a white coat rush in. "What are you doing? This is a hospital!"

"Our young master's orders," one of the men said coldly. "The woman was never here. Understood?"

The last thing I saw before everything went black was the doctor's terrified face nodding.

Then nothing.