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For a long time, neither of us spoke again. He went back to coloring, and I watched him, my heart heavy. But then, slowly, he scooted a little closer to me, his shoulder brushing mine as he worked on filling in a truck with orange.

My hand shook as I tried to resume coloring. This was why I came here every week when I wasn’t working. For moments like this, where it felt like maybe…I’d made a difference.

I smiled down at him, watching as he concentrated on the picture, and for the first time, I saw a little light in his eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. And I’d keep coming back, again and again, until that light grew.

“Want to color another one after this?” I asked, my voice soft.

He nodded, and this time, his eyes met mine with the smallest hint of a smile.

Later, I was packing up the crayons, putting them back in their box, when one of the staff members—Vicky, I think her name was—walked up beside me, smiling. “You’re really good with him, you know,” she said, nodding toward Rome, who was still quietly coloring at the table.

I glanced at him, a small, warm flicker lighting up in my chest as I watched him still focused on his drawing. But it faded as quickly as it came when Vicky added, “You’ll make a great mom someday.”

The words hit me harder than they should’ve. I froze for a split second, my heart stuttering in my chest, but I forced a smile, something practiced and easy, as I turned back to her. “Thanks,” I said, my voice calm and steady.

But inside, I flinched.

The smile felt like a mask, stretched too tight, too forced. A good mom? No. That wasn’t in the cards for me. It would never be in the cards for me. Not after everything that had been done to me, after everything I’d survived. My body was a battlefield, scarred and ruined in ways no one could see, in ways I couldn’t fix.

A rush of memories hit me at once.

My hands were shaking as I stared at the test in front of me, two pink lines on it that stared back at me like a cruel joke. I’d been careful—as careful as I could be in this job, but it hadn’t mattered. None of it mattered.

I was pregnant.

I didn’t have time to figure out what to do next. Everett found the test in the trash the next morning. He didn’t say anything at first. He just stood there, holding it up with two fingers, his face cold and unreadable.

“Who?” he asked, his voice like ice. Somehow he seemed to think that this wasn’t a client’s child. That I’d broken the rules.

I couldn’t answer to defend myself, though. My throat felt like it had closed up, my entire body shaking with fear.

“Who?” he asked again, louder this time.

I still couldn’t speak, the words lodged in my throat, suffocating me.

His face twisted in disgust as he threw the test across the room.

Before I could even react, he grabbed my arm, dragging me out of the house and into his car. The ride was silent, but the tension in the air was suffocating. I wanted to ask where we were going, but I was too scared. And…I already knew.

We pulled up to a rundown building on the edge of town, the windows dirty and the paint peeling. It didn’t look like a clinic. It looked like a place people went to disappear.

Everett led me inside as if he was taking me to the mall. “This is for your own good,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “I won’t have you ruined because of your carelessness.”

And then I was in a back room, where a man in a lab coat waited, the stench of antiseptic thick in the air.

“Take care of it,” Everett had told him, his voice cold and indifferent.

The doctor didn’t ask any questions. He just nodded, motioning for me to get on the table. The room spun as I laid down, my body shaking, my heart pounding in my ears. I wanted to scream, to run, but I couldn’t. I was trapped. I was put under a light sedation, and then the room seemed to float around me.

The procedure was quick and impersonal. Afterward, I clenched my fists so hard that my nails dug into my palms, trying to focus on anything but the pain. But there was no escaping it. There was no escaping any of it.

“Ready to go?” Everett asked in a bland, pleasant voice as he came in an hour later. “You’ll feel better once you get back home.”

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, tears streaming down my face, wishing I could disappear.

I blinked as I came back to the present, bile filling my mouth as I fought the urge to throw up.

Vicky didn’t notice the shift. She kept smiling, like she’d paid me the nicest compliment in the world and didn’t even realize the wreckage she’d stirred up inside me. “It’s not easy to get Rome to open up, but you’ve got a way with him. Kids need that. They need someone who gets them, someone patient.”