You hadn’t planned for your life to spiral this way. The hospital corridors had become your second home, the sharp scent of disinfectant clinging to your skin even after you left. Your mother’s pale face haunted you every time you closed your eyes, and with every bill that slid across the counter, the walls pressed tighter around you. You worked shifts until your hands shook, took every odd job you could find, but it was never enough. Survival had turned into bargaining, and soon you found yourself in places you swore you’d never go, whispering prices into the night like pieces of your soul could be weighed and sold.

That was the night you met him. Bernardo.

At first, you told yourself he was like the others—someone you’d forget by morning. But when his gaze found you, it felt like being pinned against the world itself. His eyes were too sharp, too knowing, carrying both danger and something that made your breath falter. He moved with arrogance, yes, but also with a charm that stripped you of excuses. You were supposed to keep your walls high, your heart locked tight, but he was already climbing over them with every word he spoke.

When he told you he was sterile, you almost laughed at yourself for caring. Why should it matter? You weren’t here to build a life, only to survive one. And yet the weight of his words sank deep, giving you just enough permission to let go.

That night, everything blurred. His touch stole your resolve, pulling you into a rhythm too tender to be meaningless and too rough to be safe. For the first time, you felt wanted—not for what you could give, but for who you were in his arms. When he whispered tesoro against your skin, the sound lodged inside you, trembling through your veins. It was your first time, and you had promised yourself it wouldn’t matter, but lying there with his arms heavy around you, you already knew this night would never fade like the others.

⸻

Three months later, the echo of that night still clung to you. You had returned to your routine—working, visiting your mother, pretending the memory didn’t follow you everywhere. But your body betrayed you. The nausea that gripped you each morning, the way your clothes tightened against your skin, the exhaustion that no sleep could cure. You brushed it aside at first, chalking it up to stress and sleepless nights.

Until the test.

The sharp lines stared back at you, undeniable, cruel in their clarity. Pregnant. Not just pregnant—four lives inside of you. Four. The air left your lungs as if the world had shifted beneath your feet. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. Bernardo had sworn, with that low, confident voice, that he couldn’t give life. And yet, life was blooming inside you now, multiplying, demanding space you didn’t have and choices you never thought you’d face.

Your hands shook as you pressed them to your stomach. Fear gripped you first, cold and suffocating. How could you raise one child, let alone four? How could you protect them when you couldn’t even protect yourself? But beneath the fear, another feeling stirred—something fragile, almost blasphemous in its audacity. Hope.

You remembered the girl who had walked into that night a virgin, thinking she could control the price of her choices. You thought you could give just enough to save your mother, then retreat back into yourself, untouched. But Bernardo had changed everything. His hands, his voice, his presence—they had left marks you couldn’t erase.

And now, whether he wanted it or not, he was tied to you forever.