Page 85 of Omega's Formula

“Mich vouches for you. That’s good enough for me.” He’d tossed me an apron. “Start tomorrow. Don’t steal from me and don’t start drama and we’ll get along fine.”

It’s not glamorous. My hands are perpetually pruned and I smell like industrial soap and stale beer by the end of every shift, but it’s money coming in, and my manager doesn’t care that that I throw up in the staff bathroom at least once a night.

“Morning sickness?” he’d asked after the third time, standing outside the door with his arms crossed.

I’d frozen, sure I was about to be fired.

“My wife had it bad with our first,” he’d said instead. “Couldn’t keep anything down for four months. There’s ginger ale in the walk-in. Help yourself.”

I’d almost cried. Again. The hormones are making me ridiculous.

The tutoring picks up faster than I expected.

Dev’s friend puts me on the list, and within a week I have three regular students. By the end of the month, I have seven. Word spreads—there’s a guy who can actually explain enzyme kinetics, who doesn’t make you feel stupid for not understanding, who charges less than the official tutoring center.

I meet them at coffee shops and library study rooms, going over practice problems and breaking down concepts until the light bulb clicks on behind their eyes. It feels good in a way I’d forgotten—this sense of being useful, of having something valuable to offer.

I add ecology to my repertoire when one of Dev’s classmates gets desperate before a midterm. Then intro chemistry. Thenbiochemistry for pre-med students who are one failed exam away from watching their dreams collapse.

Between the bar and the tutoring, I’m almost making enough to survive.

Almost.

The prenatal appointments aren’t cheap. Neither are the vitamins, or the extra food I need even when I can barely keep it down, or the warmer clothes I had to buy when the Pacific Northwest autumn turned out to be a lot colder than I’d prepared for.

My savings dwindle. Not as fast as I feared, but faster than I’d hoped.

I start keeping a spreadsheet, tracking every dollar in and out. It becomes a kind of ritual—every night before bed, I update the numbers and calculate how long I can last if nothing changes.

The answer hovers around three months. Maybe four if I’m careful. After that—

I try not to think about after that.

I call Ellie every few days.

She keeps doing better—really better, not just putting on a brave face better.

I listen to her updates and try to focus on the good news instead of the guilt eating at my chest. She’s getting better because I made a deal with the devil. I’m hiding in Oregon because I’m too scared to face the consequences.

We don’t talk about Erik. Not directly.

But sometimes, in the silences between sentences, I can hear the questions she’s not asking. I can feel her wanting to know if I’m okay, really okay, or if I’m just saying what I think she needs to hear.

I tell her about the house, about my housemates and about the bar and the tutoring and the way Portland feels like a different planet from everything I’ve known.

I don’t tell her about the nights I lie awake with my hand on my stomach, wondering what the baby will look like. Whether it will have his eyes or mine. Whether it will ever know him.

I don’t tell her that sometimes, when I’m half-asleep, I reach across the bed expecting to find someone there. That the emptiness of waking up alone feels like a physical wound that won’t heal.

The withdrawal is brutal. It doesn’t get easier. I just get better at functioning through it.

Week eleven.

The nausea is finally starting to ease. Not gone—not even close—but manageable. I can eat breakfast now without immediately losing it. I can smell coffee without gagging. Small victories.

I’m sitting in my room after a tutoring session, updating the spreadsheet, when my phone rings.

Ellie’s face fills the screen.