Her Heart’s Silent Divorce

The two pink lines on the pregnancy test felt like a dream.

I sat on the bathtub' s edge, clutching the little plastic stick, my heart pounding with a strange, unsteady rhythm.

Pregnant. After years of being told it might never happen, here it was.

A wave of warm, fragile hope bloomed in my chest. A baby. Mine and Liam' s.

But then my phone buzzed with a family group chat message: "Big news everyone. Sarah' s coming home."

Sarah. My stepsister. Ethan' s biological sister. The one who had abandoned our family-and Liam-years ago without a word.

The fragile warmth in my chest turned to ice.