Chapter 217: The night she snapped
Maria-Isabel wiped her tears with the back of her trembling hand. Her voice was uneven, but there was a rhythm in her pain, a quiet resolve forged in the fires of survival.
"When I moved away from Salvador," she began, her voice low, "I only had a few crumpled bills in my wallet. Just enough to rent a small room—barely big enough for a mattress and a broken fan. I got a job at a bank, but I couldn’t use my real name. I couldn’t touch my money. Any trace of it would have led Daniel straight to me."
She paused and looked up, her eyes distant.
"My mother told me that my father and brothers already knew what I did. She said... If I ever showed my face back home, they’d kill me."
Ethan flinched at that. The idea of Maria being hunted by her own blood made his chest tighten.
"So I stayed hidden," she continued. "No help. No calls. Just... silence. It was hard."
She looked away again, tears slipping down like quiet raindrops.
"I needed to learn to be strong. To be alone. For my child." Her fingers pressed against her ribs as if holding her body together. "There were nights I lay awake counting coins, wondering how I’d stretch them till the end of the week. I prayed, Ethan. I begged. There were moments I thought I’d die. I tried calling Mara a few times when I couldn’t take it anymore. Just to hear someone breathe on the other end of the line. But I never let the call go through."
Ethan’s jaw clenched. He tried to hold his face steady, to be composed for her, but her words were knives. Not wild, dramatic stabs. No, these cut slow and deep, carving through the armor of guilt he wore like a second skin.
"My pregnancy..." she continued, a weak smile trembling at her lips, "was hell. I was sick most days. The medication alone wiped out half my paycheck. I worked until my feet swelled so badly I couldn’t fit them in my shoes. Rent, food, medicine... it was all on me. Just me."
She looked up then. Straight into his eyes.