PROLOGUE
AVA REYNOLDS
Even after four months, the city of Bangkok still impressed me the second I stepped outside. The air was humid. I had been wearing my natural hair or curly weaves since I’d been there because any other style wouldn’t last. Scooters flew past. Vendors set up carts on corners with fruit stacked high and food already cooking. Tourists walked by slowly with their phones out.
I loved it here. I loved the noise, heat, that nobody knew my name unless I gave it to them, and that I could be Ava without being somebody’s responsibility.
I walked down my usual route toward my favorite place to eat, weaving around people and scooters. A man pushed a cart of coconuts past me. Two schoolgirls laughed as they crossed the street holding hands. A woman stood outside a shop arranging flowers.
And even with all that life around me, I still noticed the Cartier security in the shadows. I peeped him on my third day in Bangkok. He was large, Black, and stuck out like a sore thumb. He didn’t speak to me. He didn’t follow close. He just stayed in the background, always watching without staring. One day Icaught the Cartier crest on his bicep when his sleeve shifted, and that confirmed Saint sent him.
He never bothered me, so I never said a word to him. I moved like I didn’t see him at all.
My favorite restaurant sat on a side street. It was small with a hand-painted sign and a few tables inside. It was the kind of place that didn’t try to impress you with aesthetics, because the food did all the talking. The menu was short, written on a board, and the owner always looked up to greet people by name. It smelled like garlic, chili, and comfort. My go-to meal was their spicy garlic noodles with grilled shrimp and extra chili oil, and I always ordered a side of crispy pork belly. Then I finished it off with hot jasmine tea.
When I stepped in, the owner looked up from behind the counter and her expression changed into a smile immediately, but there was some sadness in her eyes. “Ava, you come.”
I walked over and held her hands. “Of course, I did.”
She squeezed my fingers and looked at me like she was trying not to get emotional. “You leave soon.”
I exhaled. “Yes, in a few days. I don’t want to leave, but I have to go back home. My sister is going to have her baby soon.”
She nodded because I had told her about my sister many times. Zahra had even spoken to her on Facetime a few times while I ate here for lunch.
Then she reached out and rubbed my belly gently like she had done since she noticed I’d started showing. “I hate I not meet baby.”
I smiled, but it didn’t feel as light as it used to. “I hate it too.”
She patted my stomach once more. “You sit. I make your favorite.”
“Thank you.” I sat at my usual table near the wall. The restaurant was half full. A couple of tourists pointed at the menu and tried to pronounce things. A group of Thai womensat together talking in their language and laughing. I saw Cartier security across the street, manhandling fruit on a cart.
I used to sit here and feel light, like I was starting over. Now I sat here and felt time closing in. Because two months ago, everything changed. I found out I was pregnant in a small clinic not far from the condo I was renting. I went in for nausea that wouldn’t go away and headaches that kept showing up in the afternoons. I told myself it was the heat and my body adjusting to the new environment.
After examining me, asking a few questions, and testing my blood, she came back in the room and said, “You are pregnant.”
I stared at her like she was speaking another language, letting her know that I was on birth control. But she explained that birth control could fail if you missed pills, took them at different times, or got sick and threw up and didn’t realize your body never absorbed the dose. Some antibiotics and herbal supplements could lower effectiveness too. Even with perfect use, nothing was one hundred percent. Some women ovulated anyway. Some bodies didn’t respond the way the medication expected.
And I had been on the pill. I thought that meant I was safe. I also hadn’t had a period the entire time I’d been in Thailand. But since the pills that I was on were meant to make my cycles very light or nonexistent, I thought nothing of it.
She gave me an ultrasound, but I knew exactly how far along I was because I had only had sex once in a year and a half.
I was already quite far along. I walked out of that clinic with my hands shaking and my life splitting in half. I cried in my apartment that night until my face hurt. I thought about all the reasons I shouldn’t keep it. I thought about Reek. I thought about his honesty about not wanting kids and the reasons behind it. I thought about how fast he would shut it down if I told him. I thought about how he would look at me.
And still, I couldn’t end it. Not because I thought it would turn him into a family man. I wasn’t that delusional. I kept the baby because when I heard that heartbeat, something in me locked in. I kept the baby because I already knew what it felt like to be traded and treated like I was disposable. I already knew what it felt like to have my worth questioned by the people who were supposed to love me. I wasn’t going to start my motherhood story with a decision made out of fear.
So, I stayed in Thailand and kept it to myself. As my stomach grew, I hid it on Facetime calls back home. I even was sure to hide it from that stalking ass security.
But now I couldn’t hide it much longer. I was almost five months pregnant, and I had to go back. My sister was about to give birth. Her baby shower was in a few days, and I was not missing that. Zahra needed me. I needed her too.
The owner brought my food over and set it down. I thanked her and picked up my fork, but my appetite wasn’t the same. Because every bite came with the same thought; in a few days, I would be back in Chicago.
Back around the Cartiers.
Back around Reek.
And I didn’t know what scared me more.
