Episode 3

Ana's POV

I had never felt so ashamed in my life.

I could endure the probing looks, even the harsh words, but that morning, when my parents looked at me as if I were a stranger… I felt something break inside me. Something that I could never put back together.

It had all happened so fast. A party. A stranger. A room. And then, hell at home.

I didn't understand how they found out, nor why the fury was so disproportionate. Well… I did understand. My parents couldn't stand losing control, and I, with a single slip, had thrown their plans, their "investment" in me, overboard. Rejecting the engagement with Nicolas Morales was just the spark. Running off with someone unknown, without a name or surname, was pure dynamite.

They gave me no choice. The next day, without even asking my opinion, they informed me that I would be going to study in the United States. A punishment disguised as an opportunity.

"You need to get away, reflect, mature," my mother said, as if my decisions had been childish tantrums.

I didn't cry in front of them. I didn't give them that power. But I cried in my room, for hours, while packing my suitcase. I cried silently, so they wouldn't hear, so they wouldn't know how broken I felt. And then, I turned off my emotions like someone turns off a light. Not out of strength, but out of pure survival.

The flight to New York was long. The voices around me were white noise. Only the hum of my own thoughts accompanied me. I wondered if I would ever manage to forget that night. If I would ever even know what really happened. Was it just a drunken adventure or something more? Was it a mistake? Or a desperate escape? I had no answers.

I only had a name I didn't know, and a huge void in my chest.

Settling in New York was not easy. I had no one. My parents had paid for everything: tuition, accommodation, even a card with a limit to survive. But that didn't make me feel free, just more watched from a distance.

I took graphic design classes at a small but respectable university. I dedicated myself to studying with obsessive discipline. Anything to not think. To not remember.

But oblivion did not come. Because, two months after my arrival, something in me changed.

First it was the tiredness. I slept too much or couldn't sleep at all. Then, the dizziness. Afterwards, the persistent nausea that didn't disappear with anything. I thought it was stress. The change of country. The pressure of being alone.

Until, one afternoon, sitting in the university cafeteria, I smelled the coffee and ran to the bathroom to vomit.

It was there, in front of the steamed-up bathroom mirror, with my face pale and my hands trembling, that I knew.

I bought a pregnancy test as if I were a criminal. I put it in my backpack, hid it under books, and returned to the apartment feeling more alone than ever.

The test didn't take long to show the two lines. Clear. Unmistakable.

I sat on the bathroom floor with the test in my hands, breathless, speechless. Part of me hoped it was a nightmare. But it wasn't.

I was pregnant.

By a man whose name I didn't know.

I cried. A lot. Out of anger, out of fear, out of confusion. I wondered again and again how it was possible. How hadn't I taken care? How had I exposed myself like that? But I didn't remember anything clearly. I only knew that that night I had crossed a point of no return… and that now I was carrying a life inside me.

No. Two lives.

Weeks later, an ultrasound revealed that I was not expecting one, but two babies.

Twins.

I laughed at the consultation. A nervous, broken, incredulous laugh. The doctor looked at me strangely, but said nothing. Me neither. I could barely process it.

Twins. I didn't know if it was a blessing or a punishment.

I decided to remain silent. To everyone. Even my parents.

I couldn't stand any more reproaches. More disappointment. More control.

This time it was my decision. My chaos. My burden. My children.

I didn't know how I was going to do it alone. But I knew that I was not going to abandon them.

I couldn't.

That night, back home, I sat on the bed and stroked my flat belly with a tenderness I didn't know I had. I closed my eyes and whispered:

"Hello, little ones… I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I promise you that I'm going to try. That I'm not going to fail you."

I didn't know what the future would be like. I didn't know if I would ever see the man from that night again. I didn't know if he deserved to know. I didn't know if I wanted him to know.

But in the midst of all that chaos, I felt for the first time in a long time… something like peace.

I was broken. Scared. Alone.

But inside me, life was beginning to take shape.

And that changed everything.

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