Ava's POV
Saturday afternoon sunlight filters through my windshield as I drive toward the pharmacy, my heart lighter than it's been in weeks.
After last night's promises with Tobias, the world feels full of possibility instead of just obstacles.
I need prenatal vitamins—I'm nearly out, and Dr. Martinez emphasized their importance during the first trimester. Plus something stronger for the morning sickness that's been getting worse instead of better.
But for once, these reminders of pregnancy feel like hope rather than complications.
My phone rings through the car's Bluetooth system, Mom's name appearing on the dashboard display. Perfect timing for our weekly check-in.
"Hi, Mom."
"Hello, sweetheart. How are you feeling? You sounded tired when we talked last week."
"I'm better, actually. Much better." I slow for a yellow light, unable to suppress the smile in my voice. "Today's been good."
"You sound different," she observes with that uncanny maternal intuition that's been reading my moods since birth. "Happier, despite everything that's been happening with work stress. Is there someone new?"
The question makes my chest warm. After twenty-one years of deflecting questions about boys, of pretending relationships that never felt real, I finally have something genuine to almost-share.
"Maybe," I admit, unable to completely hide the warmth flooding my voice. "It's complicated, Mom. He's... he's not who anyone would expect."
"Tell me about him."
I navigate through downtown traffic, choosing words carefully.
"He's older. Established. The kind of man who makes you feel safe just by being in the room with you. When he looks at me, it's like he sees all of me—not just the surface stuff, but who I really am underneath."
"That sounds wonderful, baby."
"He is." My voice goes soft with honesty. "Sometimes I wish I could just tell everyone about him. I wish this secret admirer of mine could just be mine openly. I think I might actually lo—"
My phone buzzes with an incoming text, the preview flashing on my dashboard screen. I glance at it quickly during a red light, and my heart swells at Tobias's name.
"Thinking about you. About both of you."
One hand drifts instinctively to my small bump, still hidden under loose clothing but growing more real every day. Our baby. Our future.
Another notification interrupts the moment, this time from Chloe, and the preview makes my blood run cold: "My mom is a true monster..."
"Mom, hold on one second." I tap the message open, reading the barely coherent text through what are obviously tears:
Chloe: "Today she said she should have aborted me when she knew something was wrong (hint: me being bisexual). I can't do this anymore. Please, I need you."
The words hit like physical blows. Veronica's vicious homophobia attacking my best friend, probably triggered by seeing Chloe happy with Mara. My protective instincts flare immediately.
"Mom, I have to go," I say urgently into the Bluetooth. "Chloe needs me. Something's wrong. Can I call you back later?"
"Of course, baby. Go help your friend." Her voice carries immediate concern. "Be careful, okay? Drive safe."
"I will. Love you."
I disconnect and immediately dial Chloe's number while navigating through the intersection at Green Street. The light's still yellow, plenty of time to make it through safely.
She answers on the second ring, her voice so raw with sobs I barely recognize it.
"Ava?"
"I'm here, honey. I got your text. What happened?"
"She found me and Mara at the campaign office," Chloe chokes out between gasping breaths. "We were just kissing goodbye after she brought me lunch, and Mom walked in and just... exploded."
"Oh, Chloe."
"She said I was disgusting. That I was flaunting my 'lifestyle choices' to embarrass the family during the campaign. That normal daughters don't put their fathers' careers at risk with their sexual deviance."
Rage floods through me, white-hot and immediate. "She's wrong about everything. You know that, right?"
"She said she should have known something was wrong with me from the beginning. That she should have aborted me when she had the chance because clearly I was defective."
Chloe's voice breaks completely. "God, Ava, she looked at me like I was something disgusting she'd found on her shoe."
"Listen to me,"
I say fiercely, gripping the steering wheel tighter as I drive through the quiet residential streets.
"You are perfect exactly as you are. You're kind and brilliant and brave enough to love openly despite having a monster for a mother. Veronica's poison doesn't define you. It doesn't change who you are or how much you're loved."
"I just... I can't be in that house with her right now. I can't look at her without wanting to scream."
"Where are you now?"
"Mara's apartment. She brought me here after Mom's tantrum, but I just keep thinking…"
"Stop thinking. You're safe now. You're with someone who loves you exactly as you are. Let Mara take care of you tonight, and we'll figure out the rest tomorrow."
I slow down at the next intersection, focusing completely on my best friend's pain. The light ahead is red, and I brake gently, still talking.
"You are not defective, Chloe Murphy. You are not disgusting or wrong or anything else that woman said. You are loved—by me, by your dad, by Mara, by everyone who actually matters."
"I love you, Ava," she whispers through her tears. "Thank you for always—"
Movement in my peripheral vision. Something black and fast, approaching from the left too quickly for the intersection. My head turns just as I realize what I'm seeing.
A black BMW running the red light at full speed, aimed directly at my driver's side door.
Time fragments into crystalline moments of terror.
The impact is catastrophic. Metal crushing against metal with a sound like the world ending. My car spins wildly, tires shrieking against asphalt as we careen toward the concrete barrier separating the intersection from the sidewalk.
My phone flies from my hand, but the Bluetooth connection holds. Chloe's voice screams my name over and over as glass explodes around me, as my seatbelt cuts into my chest, as my head snaps forward and back with whiplash force.
"AVA! AVA! OH GOD, WHAT'S HAPPENING?"
But worse than the impact trauma is something else. Something deeper. A tearing sensation in my abdomen that makes me scream louder than the crashing metal. Wrong, everything is wrong, pain radiating from my center outward like fire.
Blood. Too much blood, pooling between my legs even as I sit trapped in the wreckage of my car. The metallic smell mixes with gasoline and shattered glass, and I know with horrible certainty what's happening.
The baby. Oh God, the baby.
Through the spider-webbed windshield, I see people running toward the wreckage, phones already out and calling for emergency services.
From somewhere in the twisted metal, Chloe's voice continues screaming my name through the car's speakers, having heard everything—the crash, my desperate pleas about the baby, the horrible sounds of destruction.
She knows. The secret we've guarded so carefully, the truth that could destroy everything, is now echoing through Bluetooth speakers for my best friend to process through her own trauma.
Sirens wail in the distance, growing closer. Paramedics' voices, professional and urgent as they work to extract me from the wreckage. Someone asks about the pregnancy, and I confirm through gritted teeth, begging them to save what they can.
But even as consciousness starts to fade at the edges, even as trained hands work to stabilize my injuries, I understand with terrible clarity what just happened.
The last thing I process before unconsciousness is that Veronica won. Why her, why right now—my mind can’t process this right now.
But as the world gets darker around me, and other people's voices sound as if they are coming from far away, I close my eyes with the devastating knowledge that six weeks wasn't soon enough.
Tobias and I should have stopped hiding much sooner.