Chapter 6 - The Arrival
Three weeks before my due date, the stress and the adrenaline finally caught up with me.
I was standing in the nursery, folding tiny yellow onesies, when a sharp, unmistakable pain ripped through my lower abdomen. My water broke, pooling on the hardwood floor.
My mother rushed me to the hospital. The labor was intense, frightening, and overwhelmingly painful. But every time I wanted to give up, I thought of the future I was building for my child—a future completely free of toxic lies and betrayal.
At 3:14 a.m., surrounded by nurses and my crying mother, I delivered a perfectly healthy, screaming baby boy.
I named him Leo.
As I held him to my chest, inhaling the sweet, pure scent of his skin, I knew that every tear I had cried over Julian was a waste of water. This little boy was my entire world, and nobody was going to taint his life.
Word reached Julian the next day. He showed up at the maternity ward holding a cheap bouquet of bodega flowers, his hair unkempt, expecting to play the role of the doting father. He wanted photos. He wanted leverage.
He didn't make it past the waiting room.
My brother, David—a six-foot-three former college linebacker—stepped right into Julian's path.
"You aren't on the approved visitor list, Julian," David said, his voice dangerously low.
"He's my son!" Julian protested, trying to step around him.
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"You lost the right to be a father the day you paraded your mistress in front of a courthouse while Clara was carrying him," David growled, shoving Julian backward. "Get out of here before I make you leave in an ambulance."
Julian left the flowers on a chair and scurried away like the coward he was.
