"F**************K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The curse tore through the delivery room, raw and unrestrained.
It drowned out the heart monitor, the nurse's practiced encouragement, even the panic roaring in my own ears.
I'd known broken bones. I'd known the dull ache of a fistfight behind the high-school bleachers.
But this was nothing like either of them. This was pain with nowhere to go, something inside me forcing its way into the world.
Pain rolled through me from my spine to my stomach in hard, punishing waves.
The fluorescent lights above the bed blurred at the edges. Antiseptic stung my nose, and I swallowed against the urge to vomit.
I ground my teeth together so hard I thought the enamel might shatter, my hands gripping the cold metal railing of the hospital bed until my knuckles turned bone-white.
"You're doing great, Elena. One more big push. Dig deep."
Nurse Sarah wore the kind of relentlessly cheerful expression that made me want to hit something. She reached for my hand.
I yanked my hand back as if she were made of burning coals.
My right hand was already occupied. I squeezed a cold, battered Zippo so tightly that its worn metal edges bit into my palm. The silver finish had long ago been rubbed down to dull brass.
That motherf*ucker had left it on the kitchen counter the night he bailed.
I should have thrown it away with his hoodies and the rest of his empty promises.
Instead, when the first contraction hit, I found myself stuffing it into my pocket before grabbing my go-bag.
"Don't touch me!" I snarled at Sarah, sweat stinging my eyes, blurring my vision.
"And tell that doctor to get this kid out of me right now! Or I swear to god, I will reach down and pull him out myself!"
'I can't do this...'
The thought slipped through my bravado with frightening ease.
For nine months I'd buried the fear under sarcasm, anger, work—anything that would keep me from looking at it for too long.
And now it was back, I glanced toward the blue plastic chair beside the bed.
Empty. The place where he should have been.
He had vanished the moment he'd seen the double pink lines on the drugstore test.
The 'cute guy' I'd thought was the strangest person in the city—always talking about freedom, rebellion, burning out instead of fading away—had gone pale, muttered something about not being ready and the baby's future, and disappeared into the night.
I didn't cry when he left. Crying was for the weak heroines in trashy romances.
I finished my last beer, counted the months of sobriety ahead of me, and tore through the apartment looking for anything of his worth selling.
I emptied his closet. Limited-edition Jordans. His Pokémon card collection.
The custom-built gaming PC he'd babied more carefully than he'd ever looked after me.
I photographed everything, listed it online, and sold the lot within two hours.
The money was already in my account, earmarked for the hospital bill and the mountain of diapers waiting after it.
When I handed the boxes to the courier, I gave myself one last smirk.
'Get lost, you coward. We'll do just fine without you.'
And my parents? They had turned their backs on day one.
"You made your bed, Elena. Don't bring that shame to our doorstep," my father had said, his voice dripping with ice.
Fine. I would do it alone. I gathered the fear, the anger, the ugly little knot of terror in my chest, and the fierce need to protect the child inside me.
"Waaah!!!!"
A cry tore through the room. Louder than the machines, louder than my own ragged breathing.
"He's out! It's a boy, Elena," the doctor announced, sounding relieved that I hadn't actually carried out my threat to kick him.
They placed the screaming, red-faced baby on my chest.
He squirmed against the sudden cold, furious about everything, as if he'd arrived already prepared to file a complaint.
I reached out a trembling finger and poked his cheek. His skin was impossibly soft.
Then, he opened his eyes.
My heart stumbled.
His eyes were purple. Deep violet, almost storm-dark.
The same color as his father's. The same shape. I knew those eyes the instant I saw them.
I swallowed the lump of bitterness rising in my throat.
"Great." My voice came out wrecked.
"Just look at that face. You look exactly like that motherf*cker. I guess I'm gonna have to deal with you."
I wiped a stray tear from my cheek and leaned in close to his tiny ear.
I wiped away the tear before he could see it and leaned close to his tiny ear.
"The world out there kinda sucks, boy. It's mean and it's cold. But your mom is here. I'll take them all on… Cedric"
…
…
…
The first six weeks blurred together: milk, fear, coffee that was never hot when I got around to drinking it, and a baby who seemed to have no understanding of the concept of night.
The doctors kept telling me to rest. But I wanted to laugh every time they said it.
How the fuck was I supposed to rest with a tiny human who operated on an alien schedule and communicated exclusively by screaming?
The apartment turned into a war zone. Pizza boxes leaned against the wall. Laundry occupied every chair. Somewhere beneath the smell of dirty diapers was the sour tang of yogurt I'd forgotten to throw away.
I lived like a zombie. I wore nothing but a pair of men's baggy boxer shorts and an old, moth-eaten Nirvana t-shirt. This shirt... I had accidentally packed it when I raided his closet. It was three sizes too big, hanging off my frame like a tent.
I told myself I kept that shirt because it was soft and practical. That was the official reason. It definitely had nothing to do with the way, at three in the morning, I could pull the collar over my nose and catch the faintest trace of cedarwood and cheap tobacco.
3 AM. The siren went off again from the crib.
I groaned, rolling out of bed and kicking an empty water bottle across the room.
"Dammit," I muttered, rubbing eyes that felt like they were full of sand.
I picked Cid up. He was screaming, his face turning a terrifying shade of purple, kicking his legs.
I paced the tiny living room with him in my arms. I patted his back, rocked him, pulled faces, hummed nonsense. But nothing worked, he just kept screaming until my patience was down to its last thread.
Desperation clawed at my throat.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror—hair in a messy bun that looked like a bird's nest, eyes hollow, shirt stained. I looked pathetic.
"Hahhhhh, I'm not good at singing."
Without thinking, I started humming. Not a lullaby. The bass line of an old rock song—the one he used to practice on his acoustic guitar out on the balcony while cigarette smoke drifted into the night.
The effect was immediate. Cid quieted. He stared up at me, caught by the low vibration in my chest.
I froze. The silence in the room was heavy.
"You have terrible taste in music, you know that?" I muttered, looking away before my eyes could betray me. "Don't get used to it. I'm not a jukebox."
***
Money became a constant pressure at the back of my mind.
His maxed-out credit card was useless, and my savings were disappearing one purchase at a time—diapers, formula, rent.
When Cid was four months old, my maternity leave pay ran out.
The panic was different now. I had to find a job.
I hated professional clothes. Pencil skirts that pinched. Heels that made walking feel like punishment. But Cid needed food, and food required money, so I played the game.
I sat in a glass-walled interview room across from a man in a shiny suit.
He studied my résumé with the wary expression of someone inspecting a stray animal he'd found in an expensive restaurant.
"I see a significant gap in your resume..." he said, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the paper. "And given your age... is your home situation stable? The workload here is demanding."
He never said it outright, but I heard the question underneath: Is the single mother going to be a problem? Is she going to miss work every time the kid sneezes?
I crossed one leg over the other and kept my face neutral. Under the table, my thumb worked the hinge of the Zippo. Click. Open. Shut. It was the only thing keeping me from saying something that would end the interview early.
Then I felt warmth spreading across the left side of my chest. Shit. My nursing pad had shifted. Milk had soaked through my bra and was staining the crisp white shirt I'd spent my last twenty dollars on.
The sensation was gross. Sticky. Humiliating. The smell of raw biology began to rise.
I didn't blush. I didn't cover it. I swallowed the embarrassment and met his eyes.
"Are you worried I can't handle pressure?" I leaned forward.
"Let me save us both some time. I've spent four months running on two hours of sleep while keeping a tiny human alive, and I'm still sitting here coherent enough to interview with you. Compared with soothing a teething baby at three in the morning, your spreadsheets sound like a vacation. I need the money. So—are you hiring me?"
The man froze, blinking rapidly, clearly taken aback by the sudden aggression. After a long, tense silence, he slowly nodded.
"You've got... attitude. I like that. You're hired."
I walked out of the building, kicked off the heels before I reached the parking lot, and stood there barefoot with the Zippo in my hand. Cid would eat. For the moment, that was enough.
…
…
…
Eventually life found a rhythm. It was noisy, ugly, exhausting and nothing like the life I'd imagined, but it was ours.
5:30 AM. The alarm screamed. I didn't just press snooze; I slapped the clock across the nightstand.
I showered in three minutes flat with the door open to listen for disasters.
I pulled on my faded black jeans and the first clean band t-shirt I could find in the pile.
Breakfast was a tactical operation.
I stood at the kitchen counter chewing the burnt crust from my toast while spoon-feeding Cid the soft center I'd buttered for him.
"Don't get the wrong idea, kid." I muttered through dry crumbs.
"I'm eating this part because I like it. I'm not saving the good stuff for you out of love or anything. Don't let it go to your head."
"Maaaaa!" Cid shouted, banging his plastic spoon against the high chair tray like a riot starter.
"Ugh, easy with the volume," I groaned, rolling my eyes theatrically.
"You're giving me a migraine before the coffee kicks in. Say it properly. Maaaama."
"MAAAAA!" He screamed louder, spitting a spray of oatmeal directly onto my forearm.
I stared at the oatmeal on my arm. Then at him.
"It's disgusting. You know what? You're the worst roommate I've ever had."
He just giggled, flashing a gummy, toothless grin that was entirely too charming.
I tried to keep my face straight. I failed. The corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it.
"Fine." I sighed, grabbing a napkin and wiping my arm aggressively to hide my amusement.
…
…
…
The wobbly first steps turned into running. Soon the apartment was full of small feet, dropped toys and the constant evidence that a child could dismantle a room without even trying.
He grew so quickly that sometimes I felt as if I were watching someone else's time-lapse.
One week he was hanging onto my leg; the next he was climbing furniture and loudly explaining opinions I hadn't asked for.
Then came the "No!" phase. Around the same time, I decided—against all evidence—that I should learn to cook.
I stood over the stove, staring at a pot of what was supposed to be vegetable stew. It was gray and smelled like burning rubber.
"Eat up, kid." I said, ladling a glob of the gray sludge into his bowl. "It's organic or whatever."
Cid looked at the bowl. He looked at me. "Yucky."
"It's not yucky, it's nutrients." I snapped, though I knew he was right.
That motherf*ucker had always been the cook. He could take three tired vegetables and some old chicken and turn them into something that tasted like a real meal.
But I burned things. He danced around the kitchen while he cooked. I hated how much I remembered it.
I could fight a guy twice my size or could work twelve hours on no sleep. But I apparently could not sauté an onion.
"Damn it." I muttered, scraping the gray sludge into the trash.
"He took all the recipes with him when he left."
I went to the cupboard and pulled out the backup plan.
"Fine. Plan B."
…
…
…
"Eat the green balls of death, boy." I ordered, pointing at his new bowl of microwaved peas.
"NO!" he shouted. "No peas!"
"They're fuel. Eat."
He eyed me suspiciously. Then he pointed a chubby finger at my own bowl.
I looked down at my dinner: a steaming cup of cheap instant noodles.
"Mommy it pees." he commanded.
"Mommy is eating... spicy noodles. I can't have them."
"SHAIR!" he chirped, shoving his green bowl toward me.
I let out a short, dry laugh. "You stubborn little hustler. Fine. You win."
I ate a spoonful of his peas. "See? Not poison. Unlike my cooking. Now eat."
He giggled and started eating.
I watched him and felt the familiar ache in my chest. I couldn't cook like his dad. But I could make sure he never went hungry.
***
By five, Cid had become a small storm with legs.
He didn't just walk, he ran. Everywhere. All the time. He wanted to climb everything—the sofa, the kitchen counter, the big tree in the park.
Part of me was proud, he'd inherited my energy.
The other part spent every hour imagining all the ways he could crack his skull open. And I really didn't need another reason to worry.
One afternoon at the park, he chased a butterfly over a tree root and went down hard. His knee scraped against the dirt, red blooming across the skin.
He opened his mouth, his face scrunching up, preparing to let out a wail that would shatter windows.
The other moms on the bench gasped and started to rush over with wet wipes and cooing voices.
I held up a hand to stop them. I walked over slowly, calmly, and crouched down to his level.
"Hurt?" I asked bluntly.
"Hurts..." he sobbed, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Pain is good. It means you're still alive." I said it plainly as I slapped a bandage over the scrape.
"Men fall down. Then they get up. Don't lie there waiting for someone to save you. I can't be your bodyguard forever."
He sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve, looking at the skull on his knee. "You don't love me?"
The question hit me like a punch to the gut. It was unfair. It was cruel how much he looked like his father when he was vulnerable.
I grabbed him, pulling him into a rough, headlock-style hug, burying my face in his sweaty, sun-warmed hair so he wouldn't see the crack in my armor.
"Of course I love you, you idiot." I pulled him into a rough hug.
"But I want you to be a wolf, not a sheep. The world eats sheep for breakfast. I need you to have teeth."
I wanted him tough because the world could be cruel, and because I knew I couldn't cushion every fall forever.
That was the part I didn't know how to say without admitting how scared I was.
…
…
…
"Mom, where's Dad?"
The question I had been dreading finally came on a rainy Tuesday night. We cuddled on the sofa, reading a book about a bear family that I hated but he loved so I had no choice.
I froze. My right hand instinctively dove into my pocket, my fingers curling around the cold, rectangular shape of the Zippo. I traced the familiar dents in the metal.
I wanted to tell him his father was a coward, a deserter who had run from his own child. I wanted to pour every ugly truth into that little head and be done with it.
But then, a memory flashed—unbidden, unwanted.
Him, sitting on the floor of our old empty apartment, smiling that crooked smile as he figured out a difficult chord progression. The way he looked before the fear broke him.
I swallowed it. I wouldn't make Cid carry my hatred just because I was still carrying it myself.
"Your dad? He... had some Outer Gods to fight." I forced a crooked smile.
"Got lost in the multiverse. Maybe he's out there saving the world. Or maybe he's just an idiot who lost his map."
"Is he coming back?" Cid asked, his voice small.
I gripped the lighter so hard the hinge dug into my skin, threatening to draw blood.
"No."
"But he left me the best part of him. You. So I guess I can't hate him completely."
I hated myself for saying it. And I hated myself even more because I knew, deep down in the rot of my heart, that it was true.
"So, it's just Mom and Cid?" he asked, looking up at me.
"Yeah." I stood up abruptly, overwhelmed by the need to move and escape the conversation.
"Just us. We don't need a third wheel clogging up the bathroom anyway."
…
…
…
Time slipped by. Suddenly the baby I'd once carried in one arm was eight years old, stubborn and serious when he concentrated, sprawled on the worn carpet with a pile of wooden blocks.
He bit his lip, his small hand trembling slightly as he placed the final, critical red block on top. It wobbled. He held his breath.
Crash.
The tower tumbled down.
His face crumpled instantly. "It fell again!" he wailed, fat tears of frustration welling up.
I was folding laundry in the corner so I tossed a black t-shirt onto the pile and walked over.
"Stop whining," I commanded, my shadow falling over him.
"You think the world cares if your tower falls? You think the blocks are gonna feel sorry for you?"
"But I can't do it. I tried and tried and tried, but it keeps falling down. Why won't it stay up?" As he spoke, more tears streamed down his face.
"You have his hands, you know." The words escaped before I could stop them.
He looked up, confused. "What?"
"Nothing." I shook my head, annoyed at my own slip-up.
Why had he inherited that man's softer side instead of my stubbornness? I almost laughed at the thought. I had no business calling anyone else sappy.
"Remember what I'm saying now."
He sniffled, rubbing his nose. "…Yes."
"When your tower falls, it doesn't mean it's over. It means you get to build it again. Maybe this time you build it stronger." I handed him a green block.
"Never lose hope, boy. As long as you have it, you can try again. Always be brave."
He looked at the block in his hand, then back at my smile. Slowly, a small, determined nod replaced his tears.
"Okay, Mom. Let's try again!"
He wiped his eyes, set the block in place, and started over. I watched him rebuild, pride tangled up with the ache I never quite managed to lose.
***
That evening, after his favorite spaghetti dinner (Yep, I can cook spaghetti now. I'm a f*cking genius), we packed a small suitcase together.
Our first real vacation, just the two of us.
I tossed denim shorts and tank tops into our battered suitcase.
My eyes drifted to the back of the bathroom door. The black flannel was still hanging there—that motherf*cker's shirt.
I paused. My hand reached out, fingers brushing the soft, worn fabric. I could pack it. It gets cold near the ocean at night. It would be practical.
I stood there with my hand on the fabric, caught between practicality and memory.
I shook my head.
"No. Travel light."
I left the shirt hanging there. But as I turned to leave, I made sure the Zippo was deep in my pocket.
"Yo, Cid." I called out to the living room.
"You ready to tear that beach up tomorrow?"
"Yeahhh!" He came running in, bouncing on his toes.
"We're gonna see the big waves!"
"That's right. Just you and me, boy."
"Go to sleep, kid. We ride at dawn."
He climbed into his bed, pulling the covers up.
"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you," he mumbled, already half asleep.
I stood in the doorway and let the smile happen.
A real one.
"I know." I kept my voice low.
"Now shut up and sleep."
I stood in the hallway, listening to the rain drumming against the roof.
My hand remained in my pocket, thumb tracing the lighter's smooth, cold metal.
I wished things were different. But they weren't. So for tonight, at least, this little life we'd built was enough.