Ray's POV — 17 Years Ago
London rain was the annoying kind. Not loud. Not heavy. Just soft enough to ruin your cigarette and piss you off.
I stood outside the apartment building I couldn't afford, under the awning of a corner store that reeked of stale bread and sour milk, when my phone rang.
Ava.
I hadn't heard her voice in over a year. Not since she left for that school in California and I stayed behind to try and build something out of the nothing we'd been given.
We grew up in the same orphanage, knew every version of each other—from scraped knees and cracked voices to the nights we whispered dreams into the silence because no one else would listen.
We were everything to each other.
And then she left. No goodbyes. No letters.
Just silence.
I stared at her name on my screen like it was a ghost.
Then I answered.
"Ray," she breathed.
My chest tightened. Her voice was thin, like it had been shredded by too many sleepless nights. She was crying.
"Ava?"
"I—I didn't know who else to call. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"What happened?" My voice was flat. I was already moving, stepping into the road like something inside me had woken up. "Where are you?"
"Home. California. Ray…" Her voice broke. "He's burning up. He's just a baby and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help him."
I froze mid-step.
"He?"
There was a pause. Then—quiet, almost like she wanted to take it back:
"His name is Sebastian."
A punch to the gut.
"How old?"
"Three months."
Three months. And I had no idea. She hadn't told me.
"You had a kid?" I asked, my voice cold because I didn't know how to keep it from shaking.
"I didn't know how to tell you," she whispered. "I was scared. You were finally building a life there. I didn't want to ruin it. I didn't know if you'd... want this."
Want this?
She was everything I'd ever wanted.
And she didn't even give me the chance.
I didn't speak. I didn't yell. I didn't hang up.
I just turned around, walked back toward my shitty flat, and started packing my bag.
"I'll be there tomorrow," I said.
"Ray…"
"Send me the address. I'm coming."
---
That night, I left behind the first job that ever made me feel like I wasn't the orphan kid anymore. Left behind London. Left behind the idea of being angry at her.
Because she was alone. And she needed me.
And even if she broke my heart a hundred times over, I'd never stop showing up for Ava.
Never.
---
The cab dropped me off outside a worn-down building just off Santa Monica Boulevard. The sun was setting, bleeding burnt orange across the sky, and everything smelled like exhaust and desperation.
I stood in front of the rusted gate for a second, hand on the buzzer, my suitcase beside me, heart louder than the traffic.
Then the door opened.
And there she was.
Ava.
She looked different.
Not older. Just… dimmed.
Her hair was tied up in a messy knot, dark circles carved under her eyes, and she was thinner—like she'd been skipping more meals than sleep.
She was holding a bundle in her arms, wrapped in a worn blue blanket.
She didn't say a word.
Neither did I.
I stepped inside. She stepped back. We were strangers with a shared past and a future neither of us had prepared for.
Then, slowly, she turned and walked into the tiny apartment, her steps quiet, like she was afraid to wake something fragile.
I followed her into a cramped living room that smelled faintly of baby powder and something burnt. A yellow bulb flickered above, casting soft shadows on the peeling wallpaper.
She sat on the couch, adjusting the baby in her arms.
"This is Sebastian," she said softly, not looking at me.
I didn't sit.
I didn't breathe.
I just looked.
He was small.
So small.
His cheeks were flushed, eyes glassy from fever, lips parted as he whimpered softly in his sleep.
I had no idea how to hold a baby. I didn't know anything about babies.
But I wanted to protect him with a kind of violence that scared me.
"You didn't tell me," I finally said, and it came out more broken than I meant.
She winced.
"I wanted to," she said, voice barely audible. "But you were doing well. You had your shot in London. And I was fifteen, Ray. I didn't even know what I was doing. I just… I didn't want you to hate me."
"I could never hate you."
She looked up.
Her eyes were filled with tears that didn't fall.
That's when Sebastian stirred.
A soft, sickly cry escaped his mouth and Ava immediately shushed him, pressing him close, humming a lullaby with trembling lips. Her hands were shaking.
I stepped forward.
"Let me hold him."
She looked at me, uncertain.
"I don't know if—"
"Let me," I said again, softer.
She slowly placed the tiny bundle in my arms, guiding my hands, her touch ghosting over my wrists like a memory of something we used to be.
He was so warm. Burning, really. His fever was still high.
I looked at him.
Then at her.
"You took care of him alone?"
She nodded.
"You've always been stronger than me," I said quietly.
She didn't reply.
But she reached out and fixed the collar of my shirt with trembling fingers, and whispered, "I missed you every day."
---
That night, I didn't sleep.
I watched over Sebastian while she finally got a few hours of rest curled on the couch.
I made her soup in the microwave. Changed his diaper twice. Figured out how to cool his fever.
And as the sun rose, casting pale gold through the window…
I knew.
He was mine.
In all the ways that mattered.
Even if she never said it.
Even if she never knew how much I loved her.
I was never leaving them again.