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“Fletch.” My voice is soft. Shaky. It barely cuts through the cacophony he leaves behind.

He doesn’t stop.

So I do. Right in front of him.

“Fletch,” I say again, louder this time. And then I slap the envelope against his chest.

He stumbles to a halt, staring down at it like it’s about to explode.

“It’s yours,” I whisper, heart hammering like a damn war drum in my chest. “Our future. Right there. On photo paper and hope.”

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t blink. Just stands there, hand frozen against the envelope like it’s burning him through the paper.

“Say something.” My voice cracks on the edges. “Yell. Cry. Laugh. I don’t care. Just—don’t walk away from this. From me. Not again.”

The silence that falls is thick enough to choke on.

Behind us, someone presses stop on the track. The room stills.

Fletch lifts his eyes to mine. And the look on his face?

It’s not anger.

It’s fear.

Because even the bravest boys can be terrified of tiny heartbeats they never saw coming.

I don’t plan it like some grand reveal. There’s no fanfare, no emotional foreplay. Just me, standing in front of Fletch with my arms crossed and a bombshell sitting heavy on my tongue.

“I’m eight weeks,” I say, voice steady even though my insides are anything but. “And I’m having twins.”

The silence that follows is so loud it could crack glass.

His face does that thing—flat, unreadable. Like he’s made of stone, not skin and blood and bad decisions.

For a second, I think maybe he didn’t hear me. Maybe he needs a second to buffer, like an old video on shitty Wi-Fi.

But then his jaw tightens. His gaze flicks to my stomach and back up to my eyes, and I can feel the storm building.

He’s not in the mood for this.

Too bad. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to get knocked up by the one man whose emotional availability is on par with a locked vault in a sunken pirate ship.

Still, I don’t give him the satisfaction of saying something awful. Because I see it, the twitch in his cheek, the clench of his fists. Whatever cruel thing he’s about to spit at me is curling on his tongue like poison ivy, ready to sting.

So I walk away.

I don’t flinch. Don’t look back. Just pivot on my feet, my oversized hoodie fluttering around my thighs like a tattered cape, and head for the house I once imagined raising a family in.

The moment I step inside, I shut the door on him—and the whole damn world.

Let him stew in the storm. I’m too busy surviving hurricanes to care about his drizzle.

The silence wraps around me like a weighted blanket. Too heavy. Too familiar.

I exhale slowly, count the beats between each breath, and pad into the kitchen like a ghost.

Herbal tea it is.