PREGNANT AT TWENTY: HE NEVER KNEW

I kept working even as my body grew heavier. I took every job I could find — washing other people’s clothes until my fingers were rough and swollen, scrubbing floors in houses grander than the place I called home, and carrying heavy baskets of vegetables from the market to resell on the street corner. Whatever it took to put food on the table, whatever it took to save every peso for the day I would give birth. There were mornings I woke before the sun rose, fighting dizziness and the ache in my belly, forcing myself to walk kilometers just to earn a few coins. My back ached constantly, throbbing with every step I took. My feet swelled so badly that my old shoes no longer fit, so I walked barefoot or in worn-out slippers, paying no mind to the sharp stones and scorching pavement.

There were nights I cried myself to sleep from exhaustion and loneliness, my hand resting protectively on my belly. I would lie there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the city outside, and wonder if Yvan ever thought of me. If he ever looked at the empty space where I used to be and wondered where I had gone. But then I would remember the silence — the complete absence of any effort to find me — and my heart would break all over again.

But every time I placed my hand on my growing belly and felt the faint movement beneath my palm, I found the strength to keep going. You are not alone, I told myself, over and over like a prayer. He is with you. He is enough. The little life inside me became my anchor, my purpose, my whole world. I endured the hunger, the pain, the exhaustion — all for him.

Sometimes, when I was resting or waiting for customers at the market, I would see his name in the news. Yvan Montemayor — heir to the Montemayor Empire, photographed alongside Rebecca at glittering galas, ribbon cuttings at towering new buildings, and high-society charity events. They looked perfect together — tall, elegant, smiling for the cameras, the golden couple the whole country admired. He stood tall and confident beside her, his arm linked through hers, wearing that charming smile that had once been mine — the same smile I had thought was special, private, meant only for me.

Newspapers called them the "perfect couple." Magazines wrote about their engagement, the merging of their businesses, and the empire they would build together. And there was no sign that he was looking for me. Nowhere was there any mention of a missing maid. No indication that my departure had left even the slightest ripple in his perfectly ordered world. He simply continued with his life, as if I had never been part of it at all.

It hurt more than words could ever say. It hurt to think that nothing had changed for him when I left. That he hadn't even wondered why I had vanished without a word. That the woman who had cleaned his home, prepared his meals, listened to his stories until dawn, and shared his bed had simply faded from his mind. I was nothing more than a fleeting memory — a secret he had quickly and easily forgotten.

And what hurt the most — he didn't know that far away, in a small room on the edge of the city, a tiny heart was beating. A heart that was half his, half mine. A child who would one day look in the mirror and wonder why their face resembled someone they had never met.

I knew deep in my heart that I should have stopped hoping. That I should have let go of every foolish, lingering dream I still held onto. Because what happened between us that night — that beautiful, terrible night — was nothing more than a mistake. A moment of weakness. A lapse in judgment. There was no love binding us together. No promise. No future. It was only physical attraction, only the heat of the moment, only bodies seeking comfort in the dark. Nothing more. If it had been anything deeper, anything real… he would have come for me. He would have found a way. He would have cared enough to ask.

I told myself this every single day, until I almost believed it. I told myself he owed me nothing. That I had chosen this, and I had to stand by it. That it was better this way — raising my child far away from the glitter and wealth of his world, where I would always be looked down upon and seen as nothing more than a maid. All of this I told myself, yet it never lessened the pain. It never stopped the tears from falling whenever I saw his face in the papers, smiling beside the woman who belonged in his world.

As the months passed, my body changed more and more. My belly rounded out, firm and undeniable. I wore the loosest dresses I could find, wrapping cloth around myself to hide the shape, but I knew the truth was there — written clearly across my body, a secret I carried everywhere I went. I felt him move now — little kicks, sudden turns, a flutter of life that never failed to make me smile, even on my hardest days. He was growing strong, this little one of ours. He was already fighting, just like his mother.

I prepared everything for his arrival. I sewed his tiny clothes myself, cutting up old fabric and stitching it together with my own hands. I saved every peso I earned, hiding it inside a jar beneath my bed, watching it fill slowly — painfully slowly. Every night before I slept, I spoke to him, telling him stories about the stars, about the flowers in the garden I used to tend, and about his father — the man who didn't know he existed, but whom I knew, deep in my heart, was a good man.