Dolores fumbled with the cigarette pack, her fingers trembling as if they no longer obeyed her. After a moment of struggle, she pulled out a cigarette, then reached for a matchstick perched precariously on the edge of the cupboard—a placement that felt both careless and intentional, as if it were waiting for her.
The sharp scrape of the match against the box echoed in the stillness. The flame flared, bright and brief, before she cupped it with her hand to light the cigarette. Her hollow cheeks caved slightly as she inhaled deeply, her cracked lips tightening around the filter.
Her hands shook so violently that the cigarette wavered in her grasp, threatening to slip free. The smoke filled the room, coiling lazily upward, but the bitterness of it sat heavy in her chest.
Her eyes, rimmed with dark shadows, stared blankly ahead, red-rimmed and raw, as if they'd forgotten how to cry. Her breaths came in shallow, uneven bursts, like a person too tired to keep fighting but unable to stop.
And then there was the bump. The undeniable swell beneath her thin, worn sweater—proof of life, fragile and unformed, nestled within a body that seemed to be crumbling by the second. It was a cruel contrast: the rise and fall of her exhalations as they released gray tendrils into the air, and the quiet rise of something innocent, something untouched, within her.
The sight was grotesque, almost surreal, as if the scene itself couldn't decide whether to demand pity or revulsion. Smoke and silence mingled around her, clinging to the room like a bad memory. If she noticed, Dolores gave no sign.
I didn't plan it. My hand moved on its own, reaching out, stopping hers mid-motion. Before I knew it, the cigarette was out from between her lips, its tip smoldering faintly in the dim light. The bitterness of the smoke still lingered in the air between us, thick and accusatory.
I stood there, cigarette in hand, stunned by my own reaction. What had come over me? I was never the kind of man to act impulsively, let alone intervene in something so personal.
I was a type of man - a man always so blinded by himself and sunk only by the sense of duty and necessity.
Felt something for the unborn?
I wasn't doing it for her. I wasn't doing it for myself, either. It was for the life nestled inside her, small and unprotected, a life so precariously tethered to a mother who didn't seem to care.
Her reaction came fast and fierce. She pushed me back, her hands quick and desperate as she snatched the cigarette from my grip, reclaiming it as though it were some lifeline only she understood. Her shove was sharp, her nails grazing my skin as she shoved my hand away with venomous insistence.
"Let go.," she hissed, her voice trembling but forceful, her eyes glaring through her exhaustion. It was the kind of look that dared me to try again.
Dolores didn't put the cigarette to her lips this time; instead, she let it burn between her fingers, the ember glowing faintly as ash crumbled onto the floor. Then, with a sudden burst of laughter—shrill and hollow—she shattered the heavy silence. It wasn't joy, not even amusement. It was the kind of laugh that mocked her own existence, a sound teetering on the edge of hysteria.
I couldn't decide if it was comic or tragic. Maybe it was both.
She turned abruptly, stepping away from me and Sasha, the latter standing stiff as a post, her face pale and her eyes darting between us. Sasha, always the sharp observer, now looked utterly shaken. This wasn't a scene we'd been trained for—not in manuals, not in briefings.
I broke the silence with bluntness, not out of courage but because I didn't know what else to do.
"Why didn't you come to the police if you had a jar of… something grotesque? You could have informed us."
Dolores froze, then crushed the cigarette in her palm, grinding it into her skin as though testing how much pain she could take—or how much she could inflict on herself. Her impulsiveness was terrifying, a storm barely contained in human form.
"Why should I?" she spat, her voice sharp and dripping with venom.
I didn't respond. I couldn't. My words had caught somewhere in my throat, tangled in the absurdity of the moment.
She stepped closer, her movements deliberate and dangerous, as if the space between us was hers to command. Her eyes, wild and bloodshot, locked onto mine as she began to speak, her tone laced with a strange mix of anger and satisfaction.
"You know, I'm just a waitress at a club. That's where I met Noah Dawson. I thought—finally, someone rich enough to pull me out of this dumpster. He threw me like a piece of garbage for Cassie shit. When I got his preserved dick inside the jar, I was the happiest person ever."
I stood there, silent, as her words hit me like sharp blows. Her voice cracked, not from weakness but from the weight of everything she had carried alone.
"You could've asked for someone's help—" I began, though my voice was unsure, almost pleading.
Her laugh, bitter and hollow, cut me off. She sank to the ground, crumpling like a structure collapsing under its own weight. "Whose help?" she demanded, her tone sharp and raw.
She looked up at me, her face streaked with tears. "Nobody helped me. Not one damn person. A single woman, carrying a child out of wedlock—disgusting, isn't it?" Her words were laced with sarcasm, but they cut deep. "Those grannies, those aunties, those judgmental stares every time I walked by… I became the talk of the town, the walking cautionary tale. Nobody dared to help the woman with an illegitimate child. Nobody."
Her voice broke, but her hands didn't tremble as she placed them firmly over her swollen belly. Her gaze burned into mine, her tears shimmering like embers in the fire of her defiance. "But you know who helped?" she spat, her words filled with a venom I didn't understand until that moment.
"This," she hissed, gesturing with shaking hands as though cradling something invisible yet heavy. "This filthy fifty-thousand-dollar payoff—packaged with that cursed thing."
Sasha felt pitiful, she clasped her vulnerable form, Dolores snuggled deep inside her chest, feeling an alien form of warmth which she desperately needed from someone, from a woman who understood the other woman.
Tears welled in her eyes as she let them fall, one after another, mixing with Dolores's soft sobs. Together, they wept—silent tears of shared frailty, unspoken support, and an aching vulnerability that neither of them could fully escape. For a fleeting moment, they weren't alone in their sorrow.
I walked toward the door, my footsteps deliberate and steady. I reached out, quietly shutting it behind me. As I stepped into the hallway, I paused, taking a slow breath. I leaned against the wall, hands resting in my pockets, and waited. I didn't have to look back to know she would follow—there was something in the way she carried herself, something that drew her to this moment, to me. So I waited, quietly, letting the stillness settle between us.