It wasn't just the bruises.
It wasn't just the apologies, or the isolation, or the silence.
It was the way she disappeared from her own life.
And then — like a cruel twist in a story already too twisted — she found out she was pregnant.
Ava stared at the test in the bathroom at 3 a.m., hands trembling, stomach churning.
Alex was asleep in the next room. Or pretending to be.
She didn't tell him right away.
Not because she didn't want to — but because she didn't know how he'd react. Would he be angry? Would he be happy? Would he hit her or kiss her?
When she finally told him, he said nothing for a long time.
Then he pulled her close, whispered, "You're mine now. For life."
No congratulations. No excitement.
Just possession. Just control.
And she stayed.
She stayed because what else did she have left?
What she didn't know was that during those long days when she was sick, scared, alone with her thoughts and her body changing — he was with someone else.
It started with a girl from one of his classes. A party. A dare. A distraction.
Then it happened again. And again.
He told himself it didn't mean anything. That Ava didn't need to know. That she was already his, locked into his world by blood now — by a child.
He never admitted it. Not once. Not even when Ava found the lipstick on his collar, or the texts he forgot to delete.
He gaslit her until she thought she was going insane.
"You're imagining things."
"You don't trust me?"
"I'd never do that to you."
But she knew.
And still… she stayed.
Because she was seventeen.
Because she was pregnant.
Because she was terrified.
Because he used to be the boy who held her hand and carried her Band-Aids like treasure.
Now he was a stranger with the same eyes — only darker.
And she was already fading.
---
Pregnancy was the worst.
People said it would be magical — but for Ava, it was a prison. Not just because of the sickness or the pain. But because even while her body was growing a life, he was still trying to destroy hers.
He hit her.
Even when she was carrying his child.
She dropped out of school, disappeared for a year — not because she wanted to, but because he told her to. Said people would talk. Said she belonged at home.
Home.
Ava spent her days staring out the window of their apartment, one hand on her belly, the other clutching her phone, praying he wouldn't come home angry. That he wouldn't smell like perfume or have glitter on his collar. That he wouldn't throw her across the room just for looking tired or being too quiet.
He cheated. Blatantly. Repeatedly. Shamelessly.
Different girls. Different lies.
He didn't even hide it after a while. He had changed — no longer the boy who brought her stolen chocolate bars and whispered poems against her ear.
No longer the lover boy.
Now, he was cold. Controlling. Cruel.
And she — she was seventeen, pregnant, and so heartbreakingly alone.
Every time he apologized, she told herself it would be the last time.
It never was.
She began to wonder if love had ever lived here at all — or if it had always just been a beautiful, dangerous illusion.
---
The contractions had started at dawn.
She was seventeen. Scared. Alone.
The nurse had to hold her hand because no one else was there.
Her mother was halfway across the world, and the only man who was supposed to care — the father of her child — didn't pick up the phone. Not the first time. Not the fifth. Not when she was wheeled into the delivery room.
He didn't show.
No calls. No texts. No flowers on the bedside table. Just silence.
He was probably busy — tangled in someone else's sheets, whispering lies into someone else's neck, pretending like he didn't already have a life forming in a cold, sterile hospital ward.
When Adrien came into the world, Ava cried.
Not from pain. But because he was beautiful — and she had never felt so heartbreakingly empty.
She held him to her chest, fingers trembling, whispering, "I'm your mum. I'm here. I won't leave. I promise."
There were no "we did it" kisses. No proud father pacing outside the ward.
Just her. A teenage girl with cracked ribs and a stitched heart, promising the moon to a boy who only had her.
The nurses asked if she wanted to put "Father's name" on the form.
She hesitated.
Then scrawled Alex with a shaking pen — because even now, even after everything, some part of her still wanted Adrien to have a father. Even if it was just on paper.
Alex showed up two days later.
With a lazy apology and a pack of cigarettes in his back pocket.
"You good?" he asked, like she'd just run errands.
She didn't answer.
She just turned away — baby in arms, back aching, eyes hollow.
And that's when she knew.
It would always be her and Adrien.
Not them.
Never again them.