Chapter 5

Callie

I couldn’t sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face — Eleanor’s cold smile. Ava’s false sympathy. My father, unconscious and vulnerable, like he’d been handed over as collateral in a deal I never agreed to.

The walls of my apartment felt too thin. I could hear my neighbour’s TV through the plaster, someone shouting at a game show, like life was just normal, like nothing had happened.

But everything had.

And then came the memory again. Eleanor’s voice, cool and absolute:

‘They’re engaged.’

Like she was saying, the weather was going to be nice tomorrow.

It felt like a gunshot to the chest.

Engaged.

Damien and Ava.

How? When? As much as we hadn’t really defined the lines in our relationship, everything we had felt was real. At least it was real on my part. I didn’t know what to believe now. He had a whole different identity and a fiancée he had somehow failed to mention. I felt so stupid.

Had he truly been lying to me the entire time? Or was I just the idiot who ignored all the signs?

I stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the light, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked hollowed out. My eyes were red, my lips pale, like someone had drained the colour from my skin.

And then, beneath the storm of everything else came another thought. Smaller. Sharper.

My period.

It was late. Two weeks late, specifically.

I counted the days. Counted again. Then tore through the drawer under the sink until I found the little blue box I’d shoved in there some weeks ago. Just in case.

The wait felt like years.

And then it was there.

Two lines.

Two pink, screaming, undeniable lines.

I tore out another packet, repeating the same procedure, but the result was the same. I dug through the trash for the packet, hoping something would explain why the test was positive, maybe it was expired or faulty, but I was wrong. It still had six more months on its shelf life.

I sat on the floor. The tile was cold, my breath hot against my knees.

I was Pregnant.

No. No, no, no. How could this be?

This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.

I wasn’t ready. I was barely holding my life together as it was. My dad was sick, I was working double shifts just to stay afloat, and now…

A baby.

His baby.

Damien’s.

The man who told me he didn’t have a family. The man whose fiancée had just stood in front of me and smiled like she was doing me a favour. The man whose mother threatened to kill my father if I didn’t disappear.

I pressed my forehead to my knees and let out a quiet, ugly sound — something between a sob and a scream.

I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a helpless rat cornered in a trap.

The only thing I could think of, the only thing I knew I had to do, was that I needed to see him. I could confront him, maybe there was an explanation. But how could there be? The truth was right in front of my eyes. How could I deny the fact that he had played me for a fool for three months?

I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t. Who knew how he would react? A baby? He was engaged! Another thought crept into my head. If Eleanor found out that I was somehow pregnant, she could do something terrible. She’d already threatened my father’s life. I didn’t need to think much about it to know what she was capable of. That woman was cold.

I couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

I just needed to look him in the face. Hear his voice. Feel whatever it was that made me fall for him in the first place, just to be sure that I hadn’t completely lost my mind.

So I called. At 2:00 in the morning.

“Callie?” he answered almost immediately, voice thick with worry. “Jesus, I’ve been going out of my mind—are you okay?”

I swallowed hard. “I… yeah. I’m okay. I just—could we meet?”

“Of course,” he said. “Anywhere. Just tell me when.”

“That bar. Near Eighth. Is it too late?”

“No, I couldn’t sleep anyway. I’ve been worried about you. I’ll be there, Callie.”

There was a beat. I could feel his hesitation, his need to ask more.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, voice softer now. “You sound… different.”

I hesitated. Then, quietly: “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll understand when I see you.” I hung up quickly.

***

I sat outside on a bench under a broken streetlight, across the street from the bar, hoodie pulled up, eyes trained on the door.

He showed up right on time.

But I didn’t go in.

He looked like his usual self. Or maybe like the version of him I had created and just gone along with. The version I loved.

He looked around for me, checked his phone, and paced a little.

He texted.

‘I’m here. You close?’

‘You okay?’

‘Callie? Please don’t ghost me again.’

I read every message. And stayed where I was. He waited. And waited.

He ordered a drink and barely touched it. Kept glancing at the door. Checked his phone like it mattered so much.

He didn’t look like someone in love with someone else.

He didn’t look like a man engaged to another woman.

Which almost made it worse.

Because it made me wonder—

Was Eleanor lying? Was Ava? Was Damien just caught in something bigger than him, and I was collateral damage? Or was he just that good at lying?

My hand drifted to my stomach.

I couldn’t take the risk. Not now. Not with my dad’s life literally hanging in the balance.

He stayed for nearly two hours.

I watched the way his posture slumped toward the end. The way he checked his phone one last time and ran a hand over his face like he was trying not to break.

Then he left. I sat in the silence.

Opened the photo gallery on my phone and scrolled through picture after picture of us—smiles, kisses, soft moments caught in between real life.

And I let myself grieve what I’d just lost. What I wasn’t going to give him the chance to ruin. Our memories. They would always be precious, but they would remain just like that, as memories. I had more important things to protect. I put my hand against my belly.

If I wasn’t so important to him that he could come clean with me, then maybe he didn’t deserve to be with me, maybe this was for the best.

I turned off my phone.