The drive back to the house felt longer than usual. The silence inside the car wasn’t peaceful like it used to be—it was thick and buzzing, filled with unspoken things.

Oliver kept one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting protectively over his belly. The babies weren’t kicking now. Maybe they sensed the tension running through him like a live wire. Maybe they were resting. He wished he could.

When he pulled into his driveway, he sat there for a while without getting out. The engine ticked softly in the heat, and the grocery bag sat untouched in the passenger seat.

His house—small, sun-warmed, and quiet—should have felt like a sanctuary. But now the shadow of Lucas had seeped in, carried like smoke in his clothes, in his skin.

Eventually, he moved. Slowly. Carefully.

He brought the groceries in and set them on the counter. Didn’t bother putting them away. He leaned against the sink and stared out the kitchen window, watching the wind move through the trees lining the back fence.

North Bridge had always felt like a beginning.

He hadn’t picked it randomly. After his final appointment at the clinic back in the city—the one where the pregnancy was officially confirmed—he’d sat in his car for over an hour with a folded brochure in his lap.

North Bridge Prenatal & Family Care Center

Peaceful. Remote. A place where no one knew him.

No one knew Lucas.

He had found a rental online that same night. Two bedrooms. Washer and dryer included. Close to the clinic, far from everything else. It hadn’t been brave. Just necessary.

He let out a slow breath and turned away from the window.

The moment he stepped into the living room, he felt it hit him. The weight of holding it in. The entire conversation. The fear of being seen twice by him. The flash in Lucas’s eyes when he saw the bump more visibly.

He sat down on the edge of the couch, then curled in slowly, one hand bracing his back. The other covered his face.

He didn’t cry right away.

He fought it, the way he always had—just long enough for it to shake loose in his chest and climb up his throat in waves.

And then he let it happen.

Tears fell slowly at first, then faster. His shoulders shook as he tried to stay quiet, though no one was there to hear him. He cried without words, without names, just the sound of something unraveling—soft and worn and real.

He didn’t want Lucas to know where he lived.

He didn’t want him near the babies.

He didn’t want to go back.

And in that moment, something solidified inside him.

Flashback

It had been raining that day. Not hard, just steady. The kind of rain that soaks through everything if you’re not paying attention.

Oliver had just come back from a walk, soaked through, his sweatshirt clinging to him.

Lucas looked up from his phone and frowned. “You didn’t bring an umbrella?”

“I needed to clear my head.”

Lucas didn’t like that answer. He never did when Oliver left without telling him.

“I’m not mad,” he said, smiling, setting the phone down. “But you should’ve said something. I would’ve come with you. We don’t need space, Oliver. We’re better together.”

At the time, those words had sounded like love. Now, looking back, they sounded like a lock clicking shut.

Later that week, when Oliver had asked about adopting kids—or even just talking to a specialist about options like surrogacy—Lucas had laughed.

“You’re barely thirty,” he’d said. “We’ll talk about all that when it actually matters. Why rush?”

When it actually matters. As if Oliver’s thoughts didn’t matter now.

Back in the present, 

Oliver wiped his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. The crying had stopped, leaving behind the faint headache that always followed.

His breath steadied. One of the babies shifted again, a soft bump against the inside of his skin. He pressed his palm there gently.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He stayed like that for a while—still, quiet, trying to stitch himself back together.

By the time he stood up again, something in him had settled. Not the fear. That was still there, curling around the edges of his ribs.

But his resolve was stronger.

Lucas didn’t get to claim this. He didn’t get to speak in that voice and make Oliver second-guess the life he had built.

This town, this home, this pregnancy—it wasn’t a secret. It was freedom.