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1325 Words
The cab dropped me off at the edge of City X just before dawn. The city looked gray and tired under the streetlights—cracked sidewalks, flickering neon signs, the kind of place where no one asked questions. I paid the driver with the last of the cash I’d taken from my apartment and stood there with one suitcase, a backpack, and a body that already felt heavier. I was nineteen, pregnant, disowned, and alone. But I had three tiny heartbeats inside me, and that was enough to keep walking.
I found a cheap room in a boarding house near the industrial district. The walls were thin, the bed sagged, but it was mine for the month. I spent the first weeks in survival mode: doctor visits at free clinics, eating whatever was cheapest, sleeping when the nausea let me. No one knew my name. No one cared. That was the point.
Labor came early—thirty-six weeks. I woke up in the middle of the night with pain ripping through me like fire. I didn’t have anyone to call. I walked the three blocks to the rundown hospital on the corner, clutching my stomach, breathing through clenched teeth. The emergency room smelled of bleach and despair. A tired nurse took one look at me—no ring, no family—and asked if I had insurance. I shook my head. They admitted me anyway.
The delivery room was small and cold. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. I gripped the metal rails of the bed and pushed through hours of agony, alone except for the occasional nurse who checked monitors and offered ice chips. No hand to hold. No voice telling me I was doing great. Just me and the pain and the promise of what came after.
First came Jaden—dark hair, gray eyes, a fierce cry that filled the room. Then Jasmine, smaller, quieter, her tiny fingers curling around my thumb like she already knew me. Jamin last, stubborn, taking his time until the doctor had to help. Three boys—no, wait, two boys and a girl. Triplets. I stared at them through exhausted tears as the nurses cleaned them and wrapped them in thin hospital blankets. They were perfect. They were mine.
I named them in whispers while the doctor stitched me up. Jaden, Jasmine, Jamin. Strong names for kids who would need to be strong.
They kept us for three days. Then the hospital discharged me with a folder of pamphlets on breastfeeding and postpartum care, and a bill I couldn’t pay yet. I took the bus back to the boarding house with three car seats I’d bought secondhand, the babies bundled against my chest in slings. Neighbors stared, but no one spoke to me. That was fine. I didn’t have energy for small talk.
The first year was hell. I worked whatever I could find—cleaning offices at night, stocking shelves at a discount store during the day when the babies napped in a borrowed playpen behind the counter. I’d come home smelling like bleach, my breasts aching from pumping between shifts, and collapse on the mattress while the triplets slept in a row of cribs I’d scavenged. Sleep was a luxury. Food was rationed. Love was the only thing I never ran out of.
I enrolled in night classes at the community college when the triplets were six months old. Interior design. I’d always loved drawing houses, dreaming up rooms that felt safe. Now I turned it into a plan. I studied while they slept, highlighter in one hand, bottle in the other. I failed two midterms because Jamin had colic and Jasmine wouldn’t stop crying, but I kept going. Failure wasn’t an option anymore.
Then I met Mrs. Juliet.
She came into the discount store one rainy afternoon, looking for fabric samples. She was in her sixties, sharp-eyed, dressed in tailored black like she’d just stepped off a runway. She noticed me behind the counter—hair in a messy bun, dark circles, a baby carrier strapped to my chest with Jaden dozing inside.
“You’ve got good taste,” she said, nodding at the swatch book I’d been reorganizing. “Most girls your age pick the trendy garbage. You chose the classics.”
I blushed. “Thank you. I’m studying design.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Studying while raising three? Impressive.”
She left her card. Juliet Moreau. Fashion and interiors legend in City X. I didn’t call for two weeks—too scared. When I finally did, she answered on the first ring.
“Come to my studio tomorrow. Bring the babies if you have to. We’ll talk.”
Her studio was everything I’d dreamed of: high ceilings, natural light, rolls of fabric stacked like treasures, mood boards pinned everywhere. She hired me on the spot as an assistant—no pay at first, just experience and a small stipend for supplies. She said she saw potential. She also saw the hunger in my eyes.
Mrs. Juliet became more than a boss. She became the mother I never had. She taught me how to layer textures so a room felt alive, how to read a client’s unspoken needs, how to stand up for my ideas without apology. But more than that, she taught me resilience.
When I cried in the bathroom after a client yelled at me, she handed me tissues and said, “Tears are fuel, darling. Burn them. Don’t let them drown you.” When the triplets got sick and I missed a deadline, she covered for me and told me, “Family comes first. Always. The work will wait.” She babysat when I had late classes, sang French lullabies to Jasmine when she couldn’t sleep, taught Jamin how to tie his shoes with patience I never had energy for.
Seven years passed like pages turning.
I finished my degree. Mrs. Juliet promoted me to junior designer, then full designer. I saved every penny, rented a small loft in the arts district, turned the downstairs into my studio. Clients started coming—first small apartments, then bigger houses. Word spread: Amelia Clark could take a tired space and make it feel like home.
I changed too. The naive girl who once believed in fairy-tale mates was gone. In her place was someone stronger, more guarded. I smiled less freely, trusted slower, but I stayed kind. The triplets needed that. They grew into smart, empathetic kids—Jaden always watching, Jasmine full of questions, Jamin quiet but fierce when someone needed protecting. They sensed my hidden pain the way kids do. They never asked about their dad, but sometimes Jaden would stare at a magazine cover or a hockey game on TV and tilt his head, like he felt something he couldn’t name.
I never spoke Chase’s name. The mate bond had dulled to a faint ache, like an old bruise. I told myself it was better this way.
Now, seven years later, I stood in the loft studio, suitcase open on the floor. The letter from the lawyer lay beside it—Markus’s funeral in three days. City Y. The place I’d sworn never to return to.
The triplets were asleep upstairs, their soft breathing drifting down the spiral stairs. I folded clothes carefully, hands steady even though my heart wasn’t. Pajamas for them, a few work outfits for me, the black dress I’d worn to the gala that night. I hadn’t worn it since.
I zipped the suitcase and carried it to the bottom of the stairs. Then I climbed back up, slipped into their room. Moonlight spilled across their beds—three small shapes under blankets, safe and unaware.
I knelt beside Jaden’s bed first, brushing his hair back. Then Jasmine’s, then Jamin’s. They stirred but didn’t wake.
I leaned close and whispered, my voice barely audible.
“We’re going home… but it might not be safe.”
- Writer
