Chapter 16 Lila
LILA
The test stays positive no matter how long I stare at it.
Two lines. No confusion. No wiggle room. Just my life deciding to add a whole new folder and label it “urgent.”
We used protection. Condoms, the good kind, the way Ethan keeps everything else, organized and accounted for. There’s no sloppy moment to blame, no cute story to tell, no “we were reckless,” unless you count having sex with your boss as reckless, which I do, on paper, in permanent marker.
So this is an accident. The kind that happens anyway. I’m not celebrating it, but I’m also not pretending it isn’t real. The kind that doesn’t care that I’m not ready, or that I’m still sorting out whether Ethan wants me as a person or as an experience.
I sit on the closed toilet lid with the stick in my hand and feel my brain try to do math it doesn’t have numbers for. Timeline. Odds. Consequences. The part of me that likes control starts making lists, then the part of me that knows better kicks the list over.
First impulse is Ethan.
Tell him, I think, because he’s the only person in my orbit who can hold a problem without panicking, and I need that right now.
He’ll go still, eyes doing that sharp focus thing, then he’ll ask questions in a row, calm and exact.
Are you okay? Did you take a second test?
Who knows? What do you want? He’ll make room for me to answer, and he won’t pretend the world is simple.
He also has a habit of deciding he can solve things, and my life is currently full of men who treat me like a project.
I pick up my phone, then set it down again, then pick it up again, because my hands can’t pick a side. I open Ethan’s thread and hover over the keyboard.
I’m pregnant.
I don’t type it. My thumb hovers, my other hand presses against my thigh, and I exhale hard through my nose.
I’m still doing this alone, I remind myself. I’m still allowed to think before I invite someone else into it.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and the screen lights up with a number I don’t recognize.
It rings again before I can decide whether to ignore it. Persistent. Bold. The exact flavor of attention I’m trying to avoid.
I answer anyway, because I am tired of living like my phone is a trap.
“Hello.”
A beat, then a woman’s laugh, light and annoying.
“Lila,” she says, as if we’re close.
My shoulders climb halfway to my ears. “Sabrina.”
“Oh,” she says, pleased. “So you do remember me.”
“I remember you,” I say, and I keep my voice flat while my toes curl against the bathmat. “How did you get my number.”
“Does it matter?” she says.
I narrow my eyes at the wall. “Yes.”
She ignores that, because Sabrina’s biggest talent is hearing only what benefits her. “I’ve been thinking about you,” she says, and I can hear the smile in it. “About the way you looked at him.”
“I’m in the middle of something,” I say.
“Of course you are,” she replies, not deterred. “That’s what girls like you always say, right before you make a mistake.”
My fingers tighten around the phone. “Say what you want to say.”
She drags it out anyway. I can hear her shifting, maybe crossing her legs, maybe tilting her head in that way women do when they want to look harmless while they’re sharpening a blade.
“Do you know Ethan?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I know he hates being interrupted at dinner, and he doesn’t like women who insult people at his table.”
She makes a small scoff. “You know what he lets you see.”
“Okay,” I say, and my knee bounces once. “If this is about you wanting him, you’re late.”
“It’s not,” she says quickly. For half a second her voice drops into something more serious, then she drags it back into performance. “I’m doing you a favor.”
I roll my eyes so hard it almost counts as cardio. “Great. I love favors. They’re never manipulative.”
She inhales. “Ethan and Victoria didn’t just break up,” she says. “He was physically abusive.”
My face stays still. I don’t give her the satisfaction of a gasp, but my stomach does a slow, mean roll. I know about Ethan’s ex vaguely from company gossip, but I never thought to probe into the anatomy of his relationship with her.
“That’s not true,” I say, because it isn’t, because I have been touched by him in ways that required control and he never once acted like my body was his property.
“Is it?” she asks in a high-pitched voice. “You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
“You’re adorable,” she murmurs. “She thought she was sure too.”
I press my fingertips into my forehead, right above my brow, then release. “You’re lying.”
“Am I,” she says. “Or are you just new?”
I keep my tone light on purpose. “If you have proof, send it. If you don’t, stop calling me.”
“Proof doesn’t work the way you think,” she says, and I can hear her satisfaction returning. “You’re looking for a headline. You won’t get it. The firm doesn’t like messes.”
I swallow, then ask the question that matters. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re not special,” she snaps, and the edge in her voice is real now. “Because he does this, he gets obsessed, he gets possessive, and when it cracks you’re the one who pays.”
My mouth goes dry. I picture his note again, the casual claim, the confidence.
You’re mine. No one else gets to have you.
I force my shoulders down, like they can be commanded into calm. “You’re bitter,” I say. “You got kicked out of a restaurant. You want revenge.”
She laughs, short and sharp. “I want you to live.”
“Then stop talking in riddles,” I say, and my fingers drum against the phone before I stop them. “Spill.”
There’s a pause. Then, slower, “Look him up,” she says. “Not the corporate fluff. The old reports. The scandal. You’ll find enough to make you think twice.”
She hangs up.
The silence afterward feels loud, like my apartment is holding its breath.
I set the phone down beside the sink and stare at the pregnancy test again, because my brain needs something simple to look at. Two lines. Data. Reality.
Then I pick up my phone and open my browser.
I hate that she got what she wanted. I hate that curiosity always wears a lab coat in my mind, like it’s research and not fear.
Ethan Cross scandal.
The search bar autofills before I finish typing. My skin tightens.
I click.
There are articles, old ones, from before I worked at Cross Enterprises.
I remember whispers when I joined, the kind people speak in kitchens and elevators, the kind that never makes it into onboarding.
Something about a breach. Something about fraud.
Something about Ethan’s best friend and Victoria Lane.
I open one story, then another. Names repeat. Dates repeat. Phrases repeat. “Internal investigation.” “Conflicts of interest.” “Settlement undisclosed.” “No wrongdoing admitted.” It reads like rich people language for “we paid a lot of money so you would shut up.”
Victoria’s affair shows up everywhere, dressed up as tragedy and gossip depending on the outlet. Photos. Captions. Timeline speculation. Ethan’s face in suits, expression blank, like he’s already decided to outlast the circus.
Then I find the parts Sabrina wanted me to see.
A blog post with comments disabled, but screenshots floating on some forum.
Anonymous accounts calling him an abusive narcissist. People saying Victoria deserved better, as if cheating is a medal you earn after suffering enough.
A thread with strangers insisting they “heard things” and other strangers nodding along like that’s evidence.
I keep scrolling anyway.
My pulse starts climbing, not fast, just steady, like my body is turning a dial.
I open another tab. Search a different phrase. Add “Victoria Lane” and “abuse.” Add “Cross Enterprises” and “incident.” My hands move on autopilot.
One article mentions a “domestic dispute” rumor that “could not be corroborated.” No police report linked. No charges listed. Just a paragraph that exists because it got clicks.
My mouth tastes metallic.
This is the problem with the internet. It takes a whisper, adds a crowd, then calls it truth.
It’s also the problem with my brain, because now I can’t unsee the words.
Abusive. Narcissist. Controlling. Possessive.
I think about the deli again. Ethan’s hand on that man’s fingers, peeling them off mine one by one, careful and brutal at the same time. I think about the way he followed me, and the way he admitted it without apology. I think about the way he looks at me when he’s deciding something.
I think about how much I like it. Then I think about my ex hitting me in the stomach. Pushing me from the stairs. A new bruise for every new mood and a small trinket after, as if diamonds could make up for the pain.
My stomach cramps, and I press my palm to it, then pull away, then press again, because I don’t know what comfort looks like when it’s happening inside me.
I try to ground myself the boring way.
Ethan asked for consent. He checked in. He stopped when I told him to. He fed me. He held me. He listened when I asked for space. He didn’t punish me for it.
That’s real.
The internet is noise.
Sabrina is spite in a dress.
Still, my thoughts keep running, and they’re fast now, and they keep circling one question I hate.
What if I’m wrong?
My phone buzzes.
Unknown number.
I don’t open it. I set the phone face down, then flip it back up, then set it down again, because my hands still can’t pick a side.
The doorbell rings.
My lungs freeze halfway through a breath.
No one rings my doorbell. People text. People call. Delivery drivers leave things downstairs. I walk to the door with my phone in my fist and my other hand sliding under my shirt to press two fingers into my own skin, just above my waistband, like a reminder that I’m here.
I check the peephole.
A delivery guy with a pizza box and the dead-eyed patience of a man who has seen every version of human nonsense.
I crack the door. “Can I help you.”
“Delivery,” he says, glancing at his screen. “Lila Bennett.”
“I didn’t order pizza.”
He shrugs with his shoulder, with practiced indifference. “Paid already. Contactless. I just drop it.”
My throat tightens. “Who sent it.”
He looks past me into my apartment already bored. “No clue. Have a good night.”
He holds the box out.
I take it because leaving it in the hallway feels worse, and my fingers catch the heat through the cardboard. I close the door, lock it, then rest my forehead against it for a second, eyes shut.
When I turn around, I see the envelope on top of the box.
White paper. Black marker. My name, then a message.
I see you.
The room tilts in tandem with my sense of safety, and it drops through the floor like it never belonged to me.
My phone buzzes again, and my skin prickles at the thought of looking, so I don’t. I stare at the note until my eyes sting.
This isn’t a prank.
This isn’t a weird coincidence.
This is him.
My ex.
My devil, my problem, the man who liked fear because it kept me quiet.
And now I’m pregnant.
My hands start shaking. Not cute trembling. Real shaking, up through my wrists into my elbows, and it doesn’t stop.
I grab the counter, then force myself to move.
Screenshot everything. The texts. The number. The pizza box. The note. I take photos like I’m building a case file because I don’t know what else to build.
Then I stand in my kitchen and look at the pregnancy test again, still sitting there in plain sight.
I think about Ethan, and I think about the rumor machine, and I think about a man who sends a pizza to remind me he can reach me anytime he wants.
I can’t do this in the middle.
I can’t be the rope in a tug-of-war between powerful men and petty monsters.
And I can’t let my baby be born into a life where I’m always waiting for the next doorbell.
So I do the only thing that has ever kept me alive.
I run.
I open my laptop and type Flights with hands that don’t stop shaking until I press them flat against the keyboard and force them to behave.
One-way. Earliest departure. Any airline. Any gate.
I pick an airport with too many terminals and too many crowds. I pick a city I have no business going to, because predictability is a gift I’m not handing him.
The price is painful. I buy it anyway.
Confirmation number. Boarding time.
My breathing goes shallow, so I sit on the edge of the couch and inhale slow until my lungs remember how to work.
Then I pack fast.
Jeans. Hoodies. Sneakers. Charger. Passport. Cash. My work laptop because leaving it feels like leaving a trail, but taking it means I can still work, and work means I can still pay rent somewhere else.
I grab the positive test and shove it into a zip pouch because I can’t bear to part with it. As I’m washing up, my phone lights up with Ethan’s name, and my chest does that warm, stupid squeeze that makes me want to cry, which is also unfair.
I don’t answer. If I tell him I’m pregnant, he will come for me, and he will mean well, and he will turn this into a fight he can win, and the kind of man who sends “I see you” doesn’t lose fights quietly.
I type a message anyway, my thumb hovering over send.
I’m okay. I need space. Please don’t come to my apartment.
I add the truth, then delete it, then add it again, then delete it again, because I can’t decide whether telling him is protection or gasoline.
The doorbell doesn’t ring again, but I don’t relax. I move through my apartment as if I’m being watched, lights on, curtains still drawn, keys clenched in my fist as if they’re a weapon, as I work on organizing movers to come by and pack and move everything left behind into a storage unit.
When my rideshare arrives, I shoulder my duffel, lock my door, then lock it again, then walk down the stairs because I refuse to be trapped in an elevator right now.
Outside, pass. People walk their dogs. Nobody looks at me as if my world just changed.
I slide into the back seat and lock the door with my thumb.
“Airport,” I tell the driver, and my voice sounds fine, which makes me want to laugh.
My phone buzzes again. Unknown number.
I don’t look.
I pull up my boarding pass instead and let the brightness of the screen steady my eyes.
I’m leaving without telling Ethan.
I’m leaving without knowing if Sabrina is lying.
I’m leaving because the only thing I can be sure of is this.
Someone is hunting me, and I’m done offering my life as the map.
The car merges into traffic, and my building disappears in the rear window.
I press my palm to my stomach, then keep it there this time, because I need one honest moment in the middle of all this movement. “Okay,” I whisper, not to the little rumble in my stomach, not to the universe, just to myself. “We’re going.”