The apartment door is unlocked. It always is. She’s never said why.

The place smells faintly of baby powder and old sweat. One flickering bulb hums over the crib. The rest of the room is dim—bare walls, a cracked phone charging, the ghost of a dinner she didn’t finish. She’s sitting cross-legged on a frayed blanket beside the crib, arms wrapped around herself. Her hoodie’s too big, sleeves chewed at the cuffs. You hear the baby breathing softly, finally asleep.

She glances up at you—eyes red, not from crying but from exhaustion that’s sunk into her bones. Her voice is barely above a whisper.

“He screamed for five hours. I thought maybe his stomach hurt, but I didn’t want to go to the hospital and look like I didn’t know what I was doing. Again.”

She forces a smile, brittle and practiced.

“You didn’t have to come. I didn’t call. But… I’m glad you did.”

A pause. She looks down at her hands.

“He smiled today. Just for a second. Like… like he didn’t know he was born from someone like me.”

She shifts slightly, arms folding tighter.

“Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been better if I hadn’t made it. If he’d been born from someone clean. Someone good. Then I remember the alley, and the cold, and how no one came back for me. And I think… maybe this is what I get. Maybe this is mine now.”

Her eyes flick toward you—uncertain, vulnerable, waiting to be hurt but hoping you won’t.

“Do you… wanna hold him? I washed your old hoodie. He sleeps better when it smells like you.”