The pregnancy test mocks her from the bathroom counter.
Two pink lines. Clear as day. Unmistakable. Mia has taken four tests over the past three days—different brands, different times, desperately hoping for a different result. But science doesn't care about hope. Science just keeps showing her two pink lines and upending her entire life.
She's pregnant.
Three months pregnant, according to the free clinic doctor who delivered the news with the emotional investment of someone reading a grocery list. Three months, which means—
Mia does the math again, even though she's done it a hundred times. September 15th. Sophie's wedding. The last time she had sex, because after that disastrous morning she swore off men entirely and spent the next twelve weeks proving she meant it.
One night. One stupid, champagne-soaked night with a man whose last name she didn't know until Sophie told her. A man she never called, despite that message burning in her phone for two weeks before she finally deleted it.
*Call me. - AK*
She didn't. And now it's too late.
Mia splashes cold water on her face, avoiding her reflection. She can't think about this right now. She has a shift at the café in twenty minutes, then her evening gig cocktail waitressing at the bar in Williamsburg. Two jobs that barely keep her afloat, and now there's going to be a baby.
A baby.
The word doesn't feel real. None of this feels real.
Her phone buzzes. Sophie, asking if she's okay, if she needs anything, offering for the fortieth time to come over. Mia texts back a lie—*I'm fine, just tired*—and grabs her jacket.
December in New York is brutal. The cold slices through her secondhand coat like it's personal. Mia huddles into herself, navigating the morning crowd at the subway station. A woman with a stroller struggles up the stairs. No one helps. Mia watches her, something twisting in her chest.
That's going to be her. Alone, struggling, invisible.
---
The café is already slammed when she arrives.
"You're late," Marcus, her manager, doesn't look up from the espresso machine. "Again."
"Sorry. Subway delays." The lie comes easy. She's gotten good at lying lately.
"Sure. Table six needs a refill. Table eight wants to order. Move."
Mia ties on her apron and plasters on her customer service smile—the one that hides the fact that she's been throwing up every morning for two weeks, that her breasts hurt so badly she wants to cry, that she's one missed rent payment from eviction.
The morning passes in a blur of coffee orders and forced pleasantries. A businessman snaps his fingers at her like she's a dog. A woman complains that her latte is too hot, then too cold, then the wrong color. Mia apologizes, remakes it, apologizes again.
She's clearing table six when the nausea hits.
It comes fast—no warning, just a wave of dizziness and her mouth flooding with saliva. Mia abandons the dishes and runs for the bathroom, barely making it before she's throwing up what little breakfast she managed to choke down.
When she emerges, pale and shaking, Marcus is waiting.
"You sick?"
"I'm fine."
"You've been 'fine' for two weeks. You're either sick or you're pregnant, and either way, I can't have you puking on customers."
Mia's throat tightens. "I'm fine," she repeats. "It was just something I ate."
Marcus studies her with eyes that see too much. He's not a bad guy—pays under the table, doesn't ask about her lack of papers for the health insurance she can't afford anyway. But he's also not running a charity.
"Take the rest of the day," he says finally. "Come back tomorrow. If you're still sick, we need to talk."
"I need the hours."
"And I need employees who don't vomit during rush hour. Go home, Chen."
She wants to argue. Needs to argue. But another wave of nausea threatens, and she just nods and grabs her coat.
Outside, the city is too loud, too bright, too much. Mia walks without direction, ending up in Prospect Park somehow. She finds a bench far from the playgrounds—can't handle watching happy families right now—and sits.
Her phone buzzes. A text from her landlord. Rent is due in three days. She's still short two hundred dollars.
Another buzz. The art gallery she submitted to three months ago. *Thank you for your submission, but...*
Rejection. Again.
Mia laughs, and it comes out broken. Of course. Of course the universe would pile it on. Why not? She's pregnant, broke, about to lose her apartment, and now her art—the one thing she's actually good at—isn't good enough either.
"You okay?"
Mia looks up. An elderly woman in an expensive coat stands nearby, concern creasing her weathered face.
"Fine," Mia says automatically. "Just having a day."
"Those days are the worst." The woman sits down uninvited, leaving a respectful space between them. "I've had a few myself. Gets better, usually."
"What if it doesn't?"
"Then you survive anyway. That's the secret they don't tell you—you just keep surviving until one day you realize you're actually living again." She pulls out a thermos. "Tea? It's chamomile. Good for the stomach."
Mia shouldn't accept drinks from strangers. But the kindness in the woman's eyes undoes something in her chest, and before she knows it she's crying. Not pretty crying—ugly, gasping sobs that she's been holding back for days.
The woman doesn't speak. Just sits there, offering tea and tissues from her purse, a quiet presence that asks for nothing.
"I'm pregnant," Mia finally says. The first time she's said it out loud. "I'm pregnant and I'm alone and I don't know what to do."
"Do you want to be pregnant?"
The question is gentle, non-judgmental. Do you want. Not should you, or what will people think, or have you considered. Just: what do you want?
Mia thinks about it. Really thinks about it.
"I don't know," she admits. "I'm terrified. I can barely take care of myself. I have no family, no money, no plan. This is the worst possible timing."
"That's not what I asked."
Mia closes her eyes. Beneath all the fear and panic and practical concerns, there's something else. Something small and fragile and stubbornly hopeful.
"I think... I think I do. Want this. Which is insane."
"Love usually is." The woman pours more tea. "What about the father?"
"He doesn't know. I don't even know if I should tell him." Mia wraps her hands around the paper cup, drawing warmth. "We're not together. It was one night. And he's... he's not someone I can just call up."
"Why not?"
"Because he's a billionaire CEO and I'm a waitress who can't make rent."
The woman laughs—actually laughs. "Oh honey. Men like that need to know. Trust me. My son would want to know."
"Your son wouldn't want some random girl showing up claiming to be pregnant with his baby. He'd think I was after his money."
"He might surprise you. People usually do, when you give them the chance." She stands, brushing invisible wrinkles from her coat. "But that's your choice to make. Just remember—every choice is valid. Keeping it, not keeping it, telling him, not telling him. Whatever you decide, make sure it's what you want, not what you think you should want."
She leaves before Mia can ask her name, disappearing into the park like a well-dressed fairy godmother.
Mia sits with the tea and the advice and the impossible decision ahead of her.
---
That night, she finally tells Sophie.
They're in Mia's apartment, Thai takeout cooling between them. Sophie has been chattering about honeymoon plans—two weeks in Bali she and James have been saving for—when Mia just blurts it out.
"I'm pregnant."
Sophie freezes, pad Thai halfway to her mouth. "What?"
"Pregnant. Three months. It's his. Alexander Kane's."
The fork clatters to the table. Sophie just stares, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
"Say something," Mia pleads.
"Holy shit."
"That's something."
"Holy shit, Mia." Sophie grabs her hands. "Okay. Okay. We can handle this. Have you been to a doctor? Are you okay? Does he know?"
"Yes, yes, and god no." Mia pulls her hands back, wrapping her arms around herself. "I can't tell him. Sophie, you should see the articles about him. He's in the papers constantly—billion-dollar deals, supermodel girlfriends, charity galas. I'd be lucky if security even let me in the building."
"He texted you. He wanted you to call."
"Three months ago. He's probably forgotten I exist." Mia's laugh is bitter. "I'm a one-night stand he had at a wedding. I'm not important. This baby isn't important to him."
"You don't know that."
"I know he has lawyers. Really expensive lawyers who would crush me for even suggesting he's the father. I know I have no proof—it's not like I kept the shirt I woke up in. I know how this looks."
Sophie is quiet for a long moment. "What do you want to do?"
There's that question again. What do you want?
Mia looks around her tiny studio. At the paintings stacked against walls, the secondhand furniture, the window that overlooks a brick wall. It's not much. But it's hers. She built this life from nothing after aging out of foster care at eighteen. She survived.
She can survive this too.
"I'm keeping it," she says. "The baby. I'm keeping it."
"Okay."
"I know it's stupid. I know I can't afford it. I know I'm going to be a terrible mother because I don't know the first thing about families or—"
"Stop." Sophie's voice is firm. "You're going to be amazing. Terrified, probably. Exhausted, definitely. But amazing. And you're not alone. You have me. You have James. We're your family."
The tears come again. Mia's so tired of crying, but she can't seem to stop lately.
"I'm scared," she whispers.
"I know. But scared doesn't mean you can't do this." Sophie squeezes her hand. "What about Alexander? Are you really not going to tell him?"
Mia thinks about that message. About deleting it because she was too scared to bridge the gap between their worlds. About the kind of man who lives in an eighty-floor penthouse and probably has people whose job it is to handle situations like this.
"I don't know how to tell him. I don't even know how to reach him anymore. And even if I could..." She trails off. "What do I say? 'Hi, remember me? We had sex three months ago and whoops, I'm pregnant'? He'll think I planned this. That I'm some gold digger trying to trap him."
"Or he'll surprise you."
That's what the woman in the park said too. But Mia learned a long time ago not to count on people surprising her in good ways.
"I need to think about it," she says finally. "I need to figure out what I'm doing first. Doctor appointments, money, insurance. Then maybe... maybe I'll figure out how to tell him."
It's not a decision, not really. It's a delay. But it's all Mia can handle right now.
Sophie doesn't push. Just stays, talking about baby names and nursery colors and all the ways they're going to make this work, until Mia can almost believe it might be true.
Outside, December snow begins to fall, blanketing the city in temporary white. Fresh start. Clean slate.
Mia watches it through the window and lets herself hope, just for a moment, that everything might actually be okay.
She's wrong, of course.
But she doesn't know that yet.