Chapter Text
March, 1998
Natalie Scatorccio’s hands grip the cracking porcelain of the gas station sink. Her heart pounds in her chest, breath coming out shallow and quick. She inhales a deep breath, trying to steady herself, but it does nothing to calm the storm inside. Her reflection stares back at her, fractured by cracks that snake through the glass. The fluorescent light casts a sickly glow on her face.
Her black eyeliner is smudged, streaking down her cheeks in jagged lines, like an angel’s tears. It’s been a long day; longer than she’s willing to admit. Her hair hangs around her arms, tangled and wild. It’s dark and long, since she hadn’t bothered to dye or cut it since rescue. Her bones jut sharply out, a combination of her lack of food and rampant cocaine use.
She stares at the girl in the mirror, and Nat thinks she looks all of her eighteen years. She doesn’t even recognize the face in the mirror now. She hasn’t recognized herself in a long time.
Nat turns to the small piece of plastic on the toilet, sitting there like a fucking time bomb. She doesn’t want to look at it. Doesn’t want to believe it. But she does anyway.
Her fingers tremble as she reaches for it, fingers cold and trembling. Nat’s stomach sinks to her feet, and her pulse falters as she reads the test. Blood drains from her face and the room seems to tilt, her world narrowing to two pink lines. Suddenly, the air is too thick, too heavy to breathe in. Her stomach turns, a sickening pit sinking in her gut.
Nat’s knees give out, and she sinks onto the dirty floor, head in her hands. Her body crumples as if it has lost all its strength, all its will to stay upright. She tries to steady her breath, but it comes out in short, ragged gasps as sobs rip through her, heavy and sharp. It feels like something inside her is breaking, shattering into a thousand jagged pieces.
Fuck, she thinks.
(Nothing grows unless something dies first. That’s how the Wilderness works.)
Hours later, Nat is pacing in a dim, shitty motel room. Her footsteps are quick, frantic as if she’s trying to outrun the situation. Her eyes are swollen and red from tears, seeing nothing through the haze of exhaustion. Nat’s head throbs in her ears, her scrambled thoughts pressing against her from all sides.
A knock on the door interrupts her steps, and she races to answer it. The door creaks open, and a familiar face stands in the doorway, full of apprehension and concern.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Nat,” Taissa Turner breaths as she takes in Natalie’s disheveled appearance. “You look like a fucking train wreck.”
“Wow, Tai,” Nat responds with a mocking tone, something deeper hidden behind the sarcasm. “That’s one way to greet someone.”
Taissa lets out a sigh and raises her hand to her brow.
“Natalie, why the fuck am I here? You can’t just call me like that in the middle of my class and not tell me what the hell is happening. Fuck, I thought you were dying or some shit,” she demands, arms crossing expectantly.
Nat’s eyes water, and the air around her seems to thicken, causing her to struggle taking deep breaths. “I-Tai, I fucking can’t–just,” she whimpers, words catching in her throat as sobs rise in her chest once more.
Tai’s eyes soften, her eyebrows knitted in concern. “Okay,” she says. “It’s okay.”
She shuffles into the small room, messy and cluttered. Discarded clothes and bottles are spread haphazardly across the floor, and Tai notes a white powder covering the nightstand. Her hands find Nat’s shoulders, and they grip tightly.
“Nat, I know this is hard, but you have to tell me what’s going on so I can help you,” her voice is firm and stern. Natalie takes three shuddering breaths, heart stuttering in her chest. Nausea rises in her chest, and she presses her nails sharply into her arm in an attempt to ground herself.
When she speaks, it’s quiet, fragile, as though each word is a thread that can be snapped at the faintest touch. The air around her stills, holding its breath.
“I’m fucking pregnant, Tai.”
“ Shit, Nat.”
( Freezing water and ice cracking and “why can’t you hear him cry” and blood-stained hands and “holy shit nat, what did you do?” and the sharp crack of a gun)
Later, Natalie stands in the bathroom, a faded towel clutched to her skeletal frame. Taissa had insisted that Nat clean herself up, saying “ It will make you feel better, Nat.” Natalie thinks nothing can calm the storm raging inside of her.
Nat wipes the fog away from the mirror, revealing her gaunt features. God, she looks like a mess. How can she be someone’s mother like this?
She presses a hesitant hand to her hollowed stomach, as if she were testing something unreal. Nat imagines life actually fucking growing inside her, a small human completely dependent on her (arms flailing, voice pleading, small hands reachingreaching). Panic rises in her chest, suffocating her in its intensity.
But underneath the fear, Nat feels something warm and glowing twist low in her gut. Something like hope.
“You okay in there?” Taissa calls to the bedroom. Nat is snapped from her reverie and pulls fresh clothes over her wet body, small droplets clinging to the fabric.
“I just…I wanna know,” Tai asks cautiously as Nat slumps onto the bed, mattress creaking from the weight. “Is Travis the father?”
Nat grows quiet at her words and bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood. “Yeah,” she responds. “He is.”
Taissa exhales slowly. “Jesus. How?”
Natalie rolls her eyes in sarcasm. “Tai, I think you’re old enough to know how.”
A grin breaks out on Taissa’s face, and she gently pushes Nat away.
Then her face becomes serious again, questioning. “No, I just mean like…What is going on between you two?”
Nat looks down and glances at the cocaine lining her nightstand. “It’s complicated,” she states simply.
“Yeah, obviously,” Tai rolls her eyes. “Are you two just…fucking, or what?”
Nat extends her body across the mattress and stretches her aching limbs. “Well, we were actually together for a while. But you know how it is,” she says shortly.
Tai nods in understanding. She did know how Nat and Travis were, always ebbing and flowing like the tide. They came together during their lowest moments, only to spiral in a mess of self-destruction and guilt and grief. Taissa remembers Nat calling her a few months ago, begging for a place to stay after a fight with Travis. She had picked Natalie up from the street, high out of her mind and barely coherent. Judging by the shitty ass motel they were in, she guessed something similar had happened again.
“Anyway, I kinda fucked up again and…yeah,” Nat huffs, arms gesturing around the room, with its rotting wood panels and flickering fluorescent lights.
“You have to tell him,” Taissa says sternly, eyes wide and imploring. “Are you a hundred percent sure he’s the father?”
Nat glances sharply at her. “C’mon Tai, I’m not that big of a slut.” (Are you a little slut? Are you a little slut?)
She shakes her head in dismissal and sighs. “I’ve only been with one guy since we broke up,” Nat scoffs. “And Travis is the only guy I’ve never…used protection with.”
Tai’s head falls in her hands and she groans, a perfect picture of disappointment.
“Okay,” she says slowly, thoughts scrambling in her methodical and logical brain. “Do you have any idea when the date of conception was?”
Nat bites her lip in thought and nods. Yeah, she has an idea.
Her and Travis had just scored their new supply of coke, and they laughed and stumbled their way to the apartment door. Natalie rushed in, grabbing the nearest knife, and sank to her knees on the floor. Travis joined her, hands opening the small baggie and letting the fine, white powder spill onto the hardwood. They inhaled the drug together, heads rushing and hearts stilling. The world around them blurred at the edges, and time stretched and collapsed.
When their noses were raw and red, Travis grabbed a fistful of Nat’s hair and crushed his lips to hers. Their teeth gnashed and collided through the euphoric haze caused by the drug. Hunger seeped from his mouth, feral and needy. Natalie looked up at Travis through dark lashes as she slowly undressed, watching Travis’s eyes go dark with lust. She giggled and stumbled to the bedroom, Travis following close behind. He pinned her to the bed, playful and wanting, but his eyes were bright with something else.
“I fucking love you, Natalie,” he whispered.
She smiled a knowing smile and pressed their lips together once more. She bit his lip, hard and wild, a metallic taste filling her mouth. It was reminiscent of something bloody and raw.
Travis fucked her so roughly that for a moment, Nat forgot about everything.
“I think it was like two months, a month and a half ago,” Nat responds. Tai shakes her head in understanding.
“You have options, you know,” she says cautiously, letting the words hang in the air, fragile and soft.
Natalie’s body goes numb. (Natalie!Help!Please! and the bitter wind and thin arms flailing, reachingreaching for her, blood on her hands and cheek and knife) She couldn’t have any more blood on her hands. Nat thinks she wouldn’t survive that. She shakes her head softly.
“Tai, I can’t–I don’t–” she murmurs, body shaking and hands sweating, tears threatening to drop. Taissa’s face softens, and she scoots closer to Nat. She hesitantly reaches out, grasping Nat’s bone thin shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay, Nat,” she breathes, tucking Natalie’s head under her chin. Nat trembles under her, fear and dread flowing sluggishly through her veins.
(Oh Natty, don’t you know? The Wilderness takes and takes and takes.)
That night, Natalie dreams.
She’s in a cabin, alone. The cabin built by the Wilderness, located halfway between desperation and savagery.
It looks exactly as it had a year ago, as though Nat had never really left. Dust hangs in the air, swirling in the candlelight. She sits in a rocking chair, creaking with every rock of the rotted wood. Nat looks down, and in her arms is a baby, clean-faced and innocent. The child is warm and bright and so pure it makes her chest ache with hope. A flicker pulses in her chest like an ember, low and burning with something light. Something like love.
A voice whispers in her ear, then, feminine and low.
The Wilderness provides.
Lottie Matthews’s face shines in the candlelight, eyes shining with reverence. A smirk pulls on her face and she reaches her hand tentatively out, as if she can touch the baby resting in Nat’s arms. Then, she’s gone.
Her absence brings a shift. A sense of wrongness fills the cabin as the air stills, then grows thick with tension.
Natalie looks down to the infant. Beneath the soft skin of its head, something stirs and pushes. Sharp, twisting bones pierce the surface, growing jagged and gnarled. Natalie is flooded with the memory of the weight they had left on her head and chest. The baby starts to scream, a gut-wrenching and piercing cry. Nat looks around for help frantically, eyes panicked and arms tightening instinctively.
She turns her head to the right and finds a figure. Where the side of his head should be, a gaping, empty hole is, tissue and flesh peeling from the wound. Raw carnage spills from the body in thick ropes, sludging down his neck. Natalie gasps as she takes the familiar face in, one that fills her memories and marrow. Her father.
He raises his glass, filled to the brim with a thick, dark red. He presses the glass to his lips, slowly and deliberately. The violent red oozes in globs from his greedy mouth, and he smiles at her. Bits of matter cling to the gaps, and his teeth are stained with the crimson blood.
It’s been waiting for us, Natty.
The next day, Natalie stands in front of Travis Martinez’s front door. She fidgets with her leather jacket nervously, dread dragging through her veins. She remembers Taissa’s urging that she tell Travis is person, despite the fact that she was scared out of her fucking mind. Nat has to do this.
She exhales, long and slow, before knocking hesitantly on the door. Footsteps approach, and to Nat, they sound like a ticking time bomb. The door flings open and she’s face to face with Travis.
At first, his face is shocked, surprise covering his features. His deep brown eyes widen, then grow cold. A mask covers him, one of betrayal and frustration and longing. He sighs heavily.
“What do you want, Nat?” he questions, his voice gruff. Nat detects an undertone of need and yearning buried beneath his cold tone.
“Can…can I come in?” Natalie replies nervously. “I need to tell you something.”
Her widened eyes meet his, pleading and betraying the fear that fills her veins. Her entire body hums with exhaustion, with something unspoken that’s pressing against her ribs, taking hold of her organs and twisting them. Travis’s face shifts. The hardness in his jaw loosens, his shoulders dropping slightly. His eyes soften with something slightly familiar, like concern. Maybe love.
He takes her in, piece by piece: the dark hollows under her eyes, like bruises. The sharp edges of her collarbone peeking out from under her leather jacket. Her chapped lips and reddened nose. The way her hands tremble ever so slightly. It hits him all at once how empty she looks, like all of her has been carved out, leaving this broken version of her. She looks scared in a way Travis hasn’t seen since hospitals and promises and foreign faces.
He steps aside to let her in, opens the door wide. His eyes never leave her as she passes under him, half-stumbling to the faded couch in the living room.
She drops into it without grace, just a mess of dread and panic and helplessness. Her bones are too tired to hold her up, already broken from the weight of her past. Nat’s head falls into her hands, a dull ache pressing on the inside eyes, as she wills herself not to cry.
Travis takes a seat beside her, quiet and waiting. His hands tremble with the practiced need to touch her. He rests them on his knees instead.
“So,” he draws out, voice deep and low. “You gonna tell me what the hell’s going on?”
As Nat raises her head from its resting place, a pained expression fixes on her face. Her eyes meet Travis’s, trying to communicate everything without words. Saying it out loud means admitting it’s real.
The fear in Nat’s chest turns to an ocean, deep and vast. It threatens to swallow her with every passing moment, and suddenly Nat can’t breathe.
“Trav,” she whimpers, salty tears reaching her waterline. “I don’t know what to do.”
Travis’s face creases in worry, brows knitting together. “What happened? Are you in trouble?” he quickly asks, voice dripping thick with worry. “You have to tell me, Natalie.”
Nat sends a quick prayer to whatever God is above ( prayers can’t help sinners, Natty ). She scrapes her insides for every drop of courage she can, although her insides rot with unease and her cavities hollow. Waves of nausea roll through her, chest tightening. Every word she utters sticks in her throat, like heavy stones she has to force out.
“I’m pregnant.”
Her words hang in the stillness between them, fragile as if they would break at their mention. The air around them grows heavy with realizations and confusion.
Travis swallows heavily, Adam’s apple bobbing. His features are stunned, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise, frozen in place by the stinging slap of reality. He nervously runs a hand through his hair, dark fringe pushing back and falling into his conflicted eyes once again.
Nat watches him intently, her breath quickening. She feels the walls close in on her with every passing moment of silence, and its weight presses on her from all sides.
“Are you gonna fucking say something?” she snaps. It’s not anger that drives her; it’s panic. She’s reminded of him soon after the plane had crashed, all surly remarks and frustrated silence. Fuck, Nat thinks. She should’ve known this was a bad idea, Taissa was wrong, she couldn’t do this, they couldn’t do this–
“Listen,” she sighs in resignation. “If you don’t want anything to do with it, that’s fine. But I’m gonna keep the baby and–”
“Natalie,” Travis interrupts abruptly. “That’s not what I mean. I just…It’s a lot.”
Nat feels every muscle in her body loosen with relief, tension seeping out of her. Relief floods her veins, fills her bones with the kind of light that makes you feel like you’re floating. Relief that his fist hadn’t raised, that his mouth hadn’t spat venom. She feels like a little girl again, trembling and terrified.
And for a moment, Nat remembers. Remembers the nights she spent alone in the dark as a child, laying stiff as a board under her faded, second-hand blanket. The nights she kept her mouth closed and legs locked tight together in fear. Natalie feels the same now, hopeless and so afraid.
“What do we do?” she whispers, desperation swirling in her words.
Travis gently circles his arms around her, big and warm and comforting against her quivering body. He tucks her head under his chin, lets his hand wander to her back. His thumb rubs circles into her spine through her jacket, and it scares him that he can feel each individual bone. His other hand raises to her cheek, tenderly wiping away a tear she hadn’t even known was there.
“We’ll figure it out,” Travis responds, although his own tone is full of uncertainty. He puts on a brave mask because he has always felt the need to protect Natalie, no matter what. Travis can’t let her see him fall apart, not when she’s so close to breaking herself.
As his calloused fingers weave a sense of comfort, Natalie moves her hands to her abdomen, pressing her palms against the cool of her jacket. There was no sign of what she knew was in there, growing and becoming someone.
Once, Lottie had reached to Shauna’s stomach, by then slightly rounded and full.
It’s in you already.
April, 1998
One month later, Travis Antonio Martinez and Natalie Maria Scattorcio are married in a small church in Wiskayok, New Jersey. Maybe it was their shared Catholic upbringing, or the fact that Travis had long imagined Nat in a white dress, but he proposed to her one week after finding out she was pregnant.
Travis’s mother had not been happy. When he had told her, she had clutched tight to the cross around her neck and shouted, “ Dios mio, Travis! What did you do, mijo?” And then she cried, wrapping her arms tight around him.
“You take care of them, hijo. Me escuchas? ” she wept.
In his mother’s arms, Travis let himself unravel. A thought whispered in his ear, soft and low. Javi will never meet his niece or nephew.
The weight of the future crushed his bones, but in those strong, warm arms, he felt like a little boy again.
“ Si, Mama.”
When Nat had told her mother, she had laughed. Her mother looked at the cross nailed to the wall of the trailer, sighed, and then laughed, bitter and cruel.
“Congratulations. You’re just like me.”
So here they were, in a shitty church with relatives shooting disapproving glances and knowing smirks their way. Nat stands next to Travis at the door, arms wrapped around the crook of his arm as they greet the guests, all fake smiles and ‘ thank you for coming’s.’ The smell of old wood and incense fills her nose, the peeling paint and crosses reminiscent of the times her mother used to bring her to church, before. Travis’s large family seemed continuous to Nat as they poured through the door, relatives young and old and in-between. Natalie didn’t have any family. Her mother hadn’t shown up.
Her second-hand dress is stained, aged into a cream color with age. Mrs. Martinez’s heels pinch at her feet, aching from standing. She had helped Nat get ready, bustling around her and muttering in Spanish, insisting she look her best. When Mrs. Martinez had brushed her grown-out dark hair tenderly, braiding it with expert hands, Nat’s chest had ached. No one had ever helped her like that.
Travis’s suit is his dad’s (He was such a shit dad. He didn’t even like me) and it hangs slightly off his frame. His jaw is tense and pieces of dark fringe keep falling into his eyes. Natalie feels stupid, like they’re just two kids playing dress up. They are, really.
Two figures approaching break Nat out of her reverie, and she pastes an automatic smile on her tired face. Shauna and Jeff appear into view, looking slightly wary and out of place. Nat’s lips falter, just a little.
Jeff claps Travis on the back and shakes his hand enthusiastically, pulling him from her side. Natalie’s body aches from the loss of contact, like a limb had been chopped off. Her and Shauna are left staring at each other, mirrors of unease.
“Hey, Nat,” Shauna starts, her arms crossed as if she could create a barrier between herself and the awkwardness. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” she responds in the same cordial tone. Usually, Nat would be more awkward, but all she can really think about is how much her feet and back are absolutely killing her. She shifts her weight from either foot, hoping to take the pressure off them.
Shauna’s gaze flickers to her stomach, a barely noticeable bump outlined by the satin dress. Her face drops, darkness crossing her features. Shauna’s dark eyes fix on Nat, small pools of red appearing where her nails dig into her arms. Her face twitches and she’s no longer a girl, but something primal and ugly.
Natalie is reminded of cries of “ Why can’t you here him crying?” and “ You all fucking ate my baby!” and gut-wrenching sobs and a still bundle in her arms. Nat moves her hands to her belly, guilt and shame bubble in her chest. Shauna had loved her baby, and it was evident in the way she had changed after that it had broken something in her, now jagged and unfixable.
A jolt of nausea rises in Nat’s throat, hot and violent. She turns on her heel and stumbles out of the door, away from Shauna and her dark eyes and feral gaze. She staggers to the nearest bathroom, hand clasped tight over her mouth, and into a stall.
Vomit splatters into the porcelain bowl in a sickening splash. A vile, sour taste fills her mouth as she heaves what little food she had been able to get down into the toilet. When the nausea passes, she spits into the grotesque swirl of half-digested food and bile, chest heaving and eyes watering.
Natalie draws her knees up and rests her head on them, tears gathering beneath her red eyes. Her body feels empty, like a hollowed-out shell of who she used to be. She fights the urge to laugh at what her younger self would think of her now; 19, pregnant, throwing up at her own wedding to a boy she had survived years stranded in the woods with. Nat squeezes her eyes shit and wills the tears to go away, wills the whole world to just go the fuck away.
Suddenly, the door to the bathroom creaks open, loud and slow. Her breathing quickens, becoming sharp and fast. A voice calls to her.
“ Natty,” the deep voice taunts. “ It’s in you already. It always has. The hunger, the blood, the Wilderness. You can dress it up, smile and pretend, but It will never leave you.”
Natalie’s hands fly to her ears, her eyes wild and manic. She presses herself against the wall, desperate for an escape as footsteps approach the stall. They clack, heavy and familiar, and for a moment, Nat thinks her father will appear, bloody and angry. A force pushes the door open, swinging it wide. Where she expects to see a gaping, cavernous wound in a head, she finds worried eyes and furrowed brows.
“Natalie, where the fuck have you been?” Taissa’s voice questions. “Travis is looking for you; he’s worried.”
Nat’s trembling hands slowly lower to her sides, breath deepening as she attempts to regain control.
When she speaks, her voice is trembling and borderline hysterical. “I-I got sick.”
Tai sighs and bends down, face-to-face with Natalie. She grasps Nat’s hands lightly, guiding her to her feet.
“C’mon, Cinderella, let’s get you back to your prince,” she declares sarcastically. “Don’t wanna lose your slipper.”
She pulls Nat up, flushing the vomit and wetting a paper towel. Tai gently wipes Nat’s mouth off, every move careful and fragile, as if she moves too suddenly, Nat will break into a million pieces. Maybe she will, Natalie thinks. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.
Nat’s eyes stay downcast, hands white as they grip her dress. Her vision is still blurring from tears, and her hair falls from the perfect up-do Mrs. Martinez had made.
“Tai,” she starts, her voice something destructible. “Do you ever think…It let us go for a reason. We owe It something now, and one day, It’s gonna come back.”
Taissa stills, tensing as her gaze turns hollow and haunted. “Maybe. But then why does it feel like we never left?”
Days later, Nat moves back into Travis’s apartment. It’s small, shitty, and cramped, but it’s theirs .
On their wedding night, Travis had lifted her up, carried her over the threshold like some old romance movie. She had rolled her eyes and smacked his chest playfully, but something warm bloomed through her entire body. Then he took her to the bedroom and undid her in a way that made her forget, for a moment, everything that weighed them down.
Now, Nat rests on the couch while Travis is at work, TV blaring nonsense and city noise streaming in from the open windows. Her eyes wander to the ceiling in boredom, body aching yet skin itching with restlessness. She remembers what she would have done weeks ago, before she found out she was pregnant.
Natalie imagines the sweet escape she’s been craving, the white powder that dims her thoughts and quiets the storm within her. She swallows heavily, the need to inhale and forget seeping into her matter. Emptiness gnaws at her being. Thoughts swirl into her unsettled mind, whispers of temptation.
Just one more hit, just one more.
(You’ve always been weak, baby girl. Never learning, always chasing that high.)
Nat pushes those thoughts away violently. She remembers her first withdrawal, trembling hands and short replies and teenage girls. That was different, though. She didn’t have to actively work not to use, it just wasn’t around.
Natalie breathes in slowly. In and out and in and–one more hit and it’ll go away. She forces herself off the couch, her legs water as she pads quickly to the bedroom. She used to hide her stash under the bed, she remembers. Nat is familiar with this routine; she’s practiced it to perfection.
She reaches the bed and drops to her knees. The floor is rough under them, black and blue bruises already forming. She kneels at the altar of her undoing, hands clasped in reverence. Her gaze drops to under the bed, finding nothing but dust and emptiness.
A desperate wail reverberates in the hollows of her cavities. Reality sinks into her flesh, guilt and regret sharp in her gut.
What the fuck was she thinking?
Her arms snake around her belly, a protective instinct overtaking her whole being. Nat’s body slumps to the floor, sweat dripping from her brow and exhaustion settling into her bones.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a little boy with knobbly knees and wide eyes gazing at her. His skin is blue, icicles hang from his lashes. He doesn’t speak, just watches.
Nat stays frozen on the floor, blood turning to the ice that had consumed him. She doesn’t move, just stares back.
When Travis comes home, he finds her unseeing eyes fixated underneath the bed, figure trembling with need. He picks her up and carries her to the bed, smoothing her hair and tucking a blanket around her. The TV blares long through the night.
The sun perches low in the sky, painting light pinks and oranges across the sky. Nat sits on the couch again, essentially put on bed rest by Travis after he had found her sweating and trembling on the bedroom floor.
The lock on the door jingles as Travis steps in, eyes weary and body heavy with exhaustion. As he sets his keys down on the table, unlacing his shoelaces with tired hands, his eyes raise to greet her. His features instantly brighten, like she’s the first glimpse of the sun he’s had in years.
“You look like shit,” he teases, a smirk playing on his lips. Natalie instantly frowns, soft lines appearing on her pale face.
“Fuck off, Travis,” she replies bitterly, agitation present in her tone.
Travis’s brows furrow, taking in the gaunt hollowness of her face, the too-sharp edges of her cheekbones. His eyes narrow in concern, eyes flicking to her belly.
“Have you eaten anything today?” he questions.
Nat’s eyes meet his, and he sees something broken and smoking reflecting in her irises.
“I’m fine,” she snaps.
Travis sighs, runs a hand through his sweat-damp hair. He disappears in the bedroom, rubbing at a knot forming in his neck. The day had been long, longer than usual, and he really didn’t feel like pushing it right now. He peels off his shirt and and tosses it toward the laundry basket, missing it by a mile. The second he steps into the room, though something is off.
The air is too still, too quiet.
He pauses, eyes scanning the room like it might speak. That’s when he notices the state of the room: drawers are half open, contents of his nightstand dumped carelessly on the floor. Socks, receipts, school photographs his mom had given him.
He steps closer, crouching down. There, on the wood paneling behind the bottom drawer, deep scratches mar the surface. Not accidental. Not from moving furniture. Fingernail marks. Clawing. Like the animal marks they used to see on trees in the Wilderness, when they kept a rifle and tension between them like a grudge.
Travis feels his jaw tighten, and he quickly scans under the bed. Similar marks are engraved deep in the hardwood, desperate and territorial. He knows where Nat used to keep her drugs; he kept his down there also.
“Natalie,” he calls, severe and no longer playful. “What the fuck?”
He strides back into the living room. Nat hasn’t moved from her spot on the couch, curled up on the edge like she’s trying to make herself as small as possible, arms wrapped tight around her stomach. Her eyes are dull, ringed with a haze, like she’s halfway between sleep and nothingness.
“Jesus Christ, Nat,” he whispers in revelation. “Did you take anything?”
His voice is flat now, not angry, not scared. Just tired, numb. Like he’s mourning something that hadn’t even happened yet.
“I was just looking,” she murmurs, almost inaudible. Her voice is hoarse, raw. “I didn’t find anything.”
“You were fucking clawing at the floor, Natalie,” he gestures wildly to the bedroom, eyes wide and frantic. “What would you do if you had found something? You’re pregnant.”
The word hangs there. Pregnant. Like a curse. Like a ghost.
Her jaw tightens. She doesn’t look at him. “I don’t know! Maybe just shut the fuck up for once and quit acting like you’re the hero in all this!”
His face hardens. “Don’t turn this on me.”
“Oh, fuck off, Travis,” she scoffs as she rises from the couch, limbs trembling with need. The need to get high one more time, the need to scream at somebody to prove she still can. “You were in the same woods as me. You fucking followed her. You ate your brother, and you still believed there was a reason for it. But now that we’re married and playing fucking house, you wanna act like it’s me going fucking insane?”
Travis recoils, visibly stunned. He takes a step back. “That’s not fucking fair, Nat.”
“No, what’s not fair is being eighteen, knocked up, haunted by fucking ghosts, and stuck in a shithole apartment with no way out!”
“That is not true,” he grits out. “You know I love you.”
“Then why does it feel like I’m fucking dying here?” she screams, voice crackling with rage and guilt and sorrow. She thinks her bones might break from the weight of it.
Travis goes silent. He just stares at her, eyes sad and wide. “Because you won’t let anyone help you, Natalie.”
Nat laughs, hard, bitter, breaking. “Help me? You mean control me, drug test me? Hide your socks like I’m gonna shoot up with a goddamn pen cap?”
“I found claw marks on the fucking floor, Nat!”
“Yeah? And? What are you gonna do? Put me in rehab, lock me up until I’m ‘safe to raise a kid’?” She makes air quotes with shaking fingers. “Would that make you feel like the man of the house, huh? Just like your daddy?”
His face crumples. His fists tighten at his sides, white knuckled and trembling.
Her voice drops lower, venom spitting from her lips, slick and dark. “You think marrying me and keeping this baby makes up for what we did? For what happened to Javi? Jackie? All of them?”
“Fucking don’t, Nat–”
Her gaze grows cloudy, glassy, like something in her mind switches. “I see him, you know,” Nat whispers. Hot, angry tears roll down her face. “Javi. Ben. My dad.”
He moves toward her, arms reaching for her like a lifeline. “Natalie–”
“I can’t fucking breathe in here.” She moves past him, lacing her boots quickly and grabbing keys from the table. Her hands are shaking, her whole body pulled taut like a string stretched too far. “I’m going out.”
“You can’t just walk out,” Travis yells, blocking her path. “You’re not okay–”
“I’m never okay, Travis!” she shouts, shoving past him. “And maybe I never fucking will be!”
She slams the door behind her, frame rattling from the force. Small chips of paint rain from the old ceiling, the sound echoing in the sudden stillness.
Travis stands in an empty apartment, breath ragged, staring at the closed door like it might open again.
Outside, the sky is painted a sickly shade of blue, the night sticky with late spring heat.
Inside, the silence feels like the woods all over again.
(Oh Natty, you never could face the mess you made.)
The streetlights hum above her, soft halos contrasting the dark sky. Natalie sits on a splintered bench, hands shoved in the pockets of Travis’s too-big jacket. It smells faintly of cologne and cigarettes and home. It makes her stomach turn. The air around her is heavy with the promise of rain, thunder rumbling low in the distance.
Her gaze tilts to the night sky. The same sky she had stared at countless times in the Wilderness, imagining home and rescue and her future. She imagines the dark heavens as a mirror, and she stares at who she was before. Not now, eighteen and pregnant and hollowed-out. But from before, before the snow fell and winter froze her soul and humanity, turning it hard and brittle. The sixteen year old girl who had been all wildfire; feral, hungry, laughing with blood on her teeth and no idea what it meant to truly survive . The girl who had always wanted more, an insatiable hunger living in the hollows of her ribs, waiting.
But Nat is so full now. Stuffed to the brim with metallic, tender memories. Chewy, raw pieces of things she can’t name. She’s eaten enough of the past to last a lifetime.
And still, it follows her. The guilt presses on her from all sides. The weight of something ancient, something watching. Sometimes, when the wind rustles in the trees just right, she swears she can hear it. It had chosen her once. Crowned her in blood and bone and fire.
( We tried to kill you. It wouldn’t let us.)
She looks down at her hands.
Even when they’re clean, she still sees red. Crimson that never fades, from blood she spilled or swallowed.
(It happened so fast. The Wilderness chose)
(You’re lying through your teeth, Natty. The Wilderness didn’t choose. You did.)
The bench creaks beneath her as she leans forward, curling in on herself. Her stomach shifts slightly beneath her arms, a reminder that she’s not alone anymore. Not even close.
For some reason, it scares her more than it comforts her.
And still, she stands. Because the thought of Travis alone and waiting fills her cavities with a thick shame. Because home is warm and familiar and safe. Because she’s not ready to be swallowed by the dark, not tonight. No matter how tempting it may seem.
The sky spits rain as she makes her way back to the apartment. It runs in cold lines down her cheeks.
She tells herself they’re not her tears. Not really.
(Oh, Natty, you never could face the mess you made.)
Natalie stumbles into the apartment, limbs heavy with exhaustion and clothes wet with rain. Small droplets fall to the floor as she takes off her shoes, the eerie stillness inside washing over her.
“Travis?” she calls out, timid and cautious. Her eyes scan the room, searching for any sign of him.
“Trav?” Nat whispers, fear building in her chest. Fear that he had left her, had run off and gotten high out of his mind. Her breathing increases, heart dropping to her chest.
Then, a small voice answers from the bedroom. “Natalie?”
She rushes toward the sound and finds Travis curled on the floor, a photograph clutched tight to his chest. His brown eyes are red-rimmed, and tears soak his shirt, body trembling with grief. Nat’s chest tightens.
“Travis,” she answers, with all the gentleness she can muster. Nat thinks this is what they always do; one calls, the other answers. It’s just how they are.
She slowly lowers herself to the floor beside him, shivering as cold and wet seep into her body. Her eyes roam his frame, hands shaking from the effort to not touch him.
Travis doesn’t move for a while, doesn’t breathe, just holds tight to that photograph. The glass is cracked, the picture slightly faded with wear. It’s him and Javi when they were young; sunlit, smiling, and so full of life it seems tangible, like Nat could hear their laughter, feel their warmth. Silence and grief hang in the air like smoke, heavy and thick.
Travis is the one to break the quiet. “I promised him I would always protect him. I told my mom I would look out for him, you know? Before we left. She was so fucking worried about him.”
Nat feels a lump forming in her throat. It tastes like shame and grief and memory. She reaches out tentatively and pushes his dark fringe from his eyes. “I know.”
His eyes meet hers, desperate and fearful. “I thought you left,” his voice shakes. “I thought you weren’t coming back. Like him. Like my dad.”
Her gaze flickers, guilt filling her cavities. Guilt that Travis had thought she would leave him, after everything. Guilt that he had good reason to think that, guilt that he still loved her blood stained heart.
“I-I couldn’t leave you,” Nat breathes. “I just…I had to figure some things out.”
His face hardens. “Oh yeah?” he interrogates. “Like what? You gonna leave me for good this time?”
A hurt pulses in her chest. “Travis, it’s nothing like that. I’m just so fucking tired. Tired of this cycle we’re in, just constantly hurting each other.” Her voice is vulnerable, rough, like it’s been stripped down to her rotting bones.
“I’m fucking done with it, Trav. I mean, shit, we’ve got a kid on the way. We’re fucking married. And as much as I am scared shitless, I never want to lose you.”
His white-knuckle grip on the photo releases with every syllable she utters, his heart warming with something he now knows is love. It hurts and it burns, but it’s the realest, most honest thing he’s ever felt.
When she’s done, chest rising and brows knitted, he falls into her. Travis wraps his arms around her, face pressed into the firm bump of her stomach, and he cries. He cries for his lost brother, innocent and gentle. He cries for Natalie, for the pure love she’s able to give him, despite everything. He cries for his unborn baby, the only thing in his life that feels like a beginning, like hope, and he already feels a love so deep in his bones it feels like grief. And finally, he cries for himself. For the first time since their plane crashed into a world of survival and loss, Travis allows himself to break. He lets himself sob for the man– no, boy –he could’ve been, for his innocence that he can never reclaim. For the time in the Wilderness when all he knew were the girls’ hands taking and taking from him, ripping his shirt and his dignity in one.
For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, Travis allows himself to feel. When his sobs subside, Natalie is there, her warmth a blaze in the cold. He sits up, fresh tears streaking down his face. He grasps Nat’s hand tenderly, her face contorted with the weight of understanding. Understanding of what happened to him, the heaviness of his never-ending grief.
Travis takes her small hand in his, guiding it to the center of his chest. He places her palm, shaking and cold, directly over his heart. As her hand rests against him, he draws a deep breath, ensuring she feels the rise and fall of his chest under her. It’s reminiscent of a time when he pledged his heart to her, when his brother’s meat sat heavy in his gut. Tears slip from her eyes as she looks at him, like he’s a light in the storm.
Every thump that reverberates in his chest is purposeful, a symbol of life and reminder of his existence, in spite of it all. The moment stretches, so raw and so real it makes his stomach ache. The steady rhythm echoes everything he doesn’t to speak out loud; the grief so heavy he can’t move sometimes, the guilt that burrows deep in his marrow, the all-consuming love that runs, hot and thick, through his veins.
He thinks, maybe one day, he’ll let her see the whole of him. But for now, the burden is his alone to carry.
For now, he just allows her to feel.
Months slip by in a quiet blur. Spring melts into the heat of summer then gives way to the sharp chill of autumn. Life doesn’t exactly slow down, but it settles. Travis gets a raise at the construction company and Nat picks up a part-time job serving drinks at a shitty bar downtown. It reeks of cheap beer and the men that frequent there call out and whistle at her as she walks by, but it pays cash and doesn’t ask questions.
They fall into a kind of rhythm. Not perfect, but enough. Travis wakes before the sun rises and comes home after it sets, tired and sweat-stained. On the nights Nat isn’t pulling doubles, she cooks dinner and waits up for him, bare feet padding across the hardwood. When he walks through the door, her warm smile makes his day worth it.
Taissa calls, asking how everything is, telling Nat how she’s graduating early from Howard, how she got into Columbia Law. She tells her that Shauna and Jeff are getting married and she wants them to be bridesmaids (which they both laugh at), and gives her Van’s new number.
Nat turns nineteen in June, and they celebrate with a small cake and a candle. They dress up and go out to a fancy dinner they’d saved up for over a month, but the food tastes bland, the guests pretentious as they eye Nat’s belly. Afterward, they laugh about it on the walk home, arm looped through his. They end up ordering take out and fucking on the couch.
Travis’s birthday follows in July, and Nat gives him a tape wrapped in a red ribbon labeled ‘Travis + Nat’s Mix.’ He grins when he opens it, and the apartment fills with their songs.
Her stomach grows every week, round and firm underneath her shirts, an undeniable reminder of their future. Some days, it terrifies her so much she can’t move, bones shattering with fear. She still craves it. The drugs, the drinking. But then she feels her stomach and pushes the thoughts away with all the force she has.
The first time she feels the baby move, she curls into bed, trembling, too overwhelmed to speak. Travis sits beside her, silent and steady, his hand on her back, waiting.
But then, on quieter days, when he comes home and drops his bag by the door, he’ll rest his hand gently on her belly, his thumb tracing light circles. His touch is so casual, so unthinking, it makes Nat think it’s all worth it.
August, 1998
It’s a late summer night, highlighted by singing cicadas and a sticky breeze. Nat’s working a double again, saving up for a high chair. Her legs ache, and her back is screaming from work. But she’s used to pushing through. She had always been the girl who could keep going, who wouldn’t quit. Not even when bruises would cover her body, or when her bones felt hollow from hunger. Not even when her heart ached with loss and guilt. But today was different.
Nat wipes down the sticky bar, feet aching from the stress of waiting tables for hours. As she raises her hand to push her dark bangs from her face, a sharp pain twinges in her chest. Suddenly, her vision blurs, light mixing with dark as the world spins around her. Sounds muffle to a low hum. Her knees buckle, her body goes numb, and her limbs turn to lead.
Nat collapses onto the floor, hard and unforgiving beneath her. She barely registers the gasps, the rush of footsteps, or the cool press of someone’s hand on her arm.
“Call 911! Somebody call 911!” a voice calls out sharply.
The last thing she’s aware of is the sharp sting of tears on her face and the desperate plea for her baby to be okay.
Natalie wakes to the rhythmic beeping of machines, the harsh glare of fluorescent lights burning her retinas. Her mouth tastes like ash, her limbs heavy as if pinned down by the weight of memory. She blinks against the white, sterile walls, disoriented.
The air she breathes begins to thin, and she feels like there’s not enough oxygen in the world to supply her. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, desperate for any air she can get.
“Nat, hey, you’re okay,” a deep voice cracks from her right. Travis is there in a plastic chair, eyes bloodshot, dark circles beneath them. He places a large hand on her chest, silently asking her to copy his slow breaths. She closes her eyes and focuses on the feeling of his palm against her heart, steady and strong. When she regains her ability to breathe, panic grips her spine. Nat looks to Travis in worry, eyes wide and panicked.
“What about the baby? Is she okay? Travis, is she okay?” she gulps, heart racing out of her chest at the possibility of her baby being hurt. No, she thinks. Not like Javi. Not like Ben.
(The blood always follows you, Natty. It’s in your DNA to destroy.)
Travis grips her hand tightly, his brown eyes deep with worry. “Natalie, she’s okay. She’s fine, baby.”
A weight dissolves from Nat’s gut and she breathes a shaky sigh of relief. Her hands find her bump under the blankets, firm and still there. Not gone under icy water, not bloody from her own knife. Travis’s palms find hers, rubbing circles on her stomach with his thumbs.
A nurse enters, checking monitors and scribbling notes. “You collapsed, honey,” she explains gently. “Dehydration, low blood sugar. Your body weight is dangerously low, Mrs. Martinez. And your blood pressure…you’re running on empty, sweetheart.”
The words swirl around Nat’s head, and all she hears is empty. It feels like the cold, gnawing emptiness that had filled her stomach when there was nothing left but bones and marrow, when hunger had become a second skin.
Travis’s hold tightens around her, pressing into her rounded belly. She feels a faint kick beneath their joined hands. The baby is still there, still moving, a fragile proof of life in a body that feels too frail to hold it.
Travis leans in close, voice rough. “The doctor said this–this might be from before. From when we weren’t eating right. You’ve been starving for so long, Nat, your body…” He can’t finish, his throat heavy with unshed tears.
Memory rushes up like a wave, drowning her in flashes from before. Of freezing nights, huddled against the others for warmth. Of biting into raw meat, pretending not to gag. Of waking to the sight of bones picked clean, never knowing if she was next.
“I thought we made it out,” Nat whispers hoarsely, voice breaking. “It’s still in me, Trav. It’s in all of us. I thought it was over but it’s still…here.”
Travis’s eyes flash with sadness and a deep understanding. “But you’re not there anymore,” he murmurs. “You’re here. With me.”
Tears slip down her cheeks, silent and unstoppable.”But it feels the same,” she confesses, voice cracking around each syllable. “I don’t want to fuck up this baby, Travis.”
“I know,” Travis sighs. He lifts her hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against her knuckles. “But we’ll figure this out. We’ll get you healthy, Natalie. It’s okay.”
As the machines beep softly around her, Nat closes her eyes. She can almost feel a winter wind like knives against her skin, but Travis’s firm grip keeps her grounded in the present. But still, she feels his hand shake slightly against hers.
They arrive home as the sun rises, with exhaustion clouding their vision and an order of reduced activity from the doctor. Nat sighs when she hears, because she knows without the money she makes they’ll barely get by. But Travis insists, saying he’ll pick up extra shifts.
Nat removes her boots slowly, movements tired and sluggish. Despite that, her mind races. Fear takes refuge in the soft of her matter, like always. Nat thinks it’s been ingrained in her DNA. She struggles to remember a time when she hadn’t been afraid, even before the crash.
Travis notices, and he grabs her arm lightly. “You good?”
Nat nods, looking at his own tired features and red eyes. “Could ask you the same thing.”
He smiles, soft lines appearing on his tan skin. It makes Nat’s heart warm and her chest flutter. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Nat suddenly feels strong arms lift her feet off the ground, and she finds herself cradled against Travis’s chest.
“Travis!” she berates, swatting playfully at his arms. “You’re tired too, and I can walk a couple of feet to the bed.”
“Nope,” he responds, hold tightening around her fragile frame. “Not on my watch you’re not.”
Natalie rolls her eyes, but allows it. He’s worried, she knows. She can see it in his face, the small pull of his forehead when he looks at her or the bump. So she entertains him, lets him feel like he’s protecting her from whatever harm can be caused by five steps.
He lays her on the bed gently, her eyes fluttering with sleep. He pulls a blanket over her, tucking her in tenderly. Travis remembers when Javi was little and Travis would tuck him into bed just like this, his brother begging him for a bedtime story. For the first time in a while, he doesn’t feel pain when thinking of Javi. Just love.
Travis raises a hand and smooths her dark hair from her face. “Goodnight, Nat.”
She’s asleep before she can respond.
September, 1998
The following weeks are filled with a quiet kind of urgency. Nat counts down the weeks, her due date getting closer and closer. They spend lazy afternoons drifting through thrift stores, hands brushing as they shift through racks of faded onesies, tiny jackets, and baby shoes. Nat gravitates toward the muted colors, but Travis insists that their kid have at least one ridiculous hat with ears on it.
Sometimes, they argue over names. Nat suggests ‘Cobain’ just to piss him off. Travis threatens the name ‘Cher’ in retaliation (“From the movie where the girl fucks her step-brother”), and that shuts her up. Other times, they don’t say anything at all. They just move together in an unspoken rhythm, hands full of tiny clothes and hope.
One Saturday, they drive out to Travis’s childhood home, air crisp with early autumn coolness. The gravel crunches as they pull up to the house, white paint peeling and wind chimes singing softly from the porch. Nat’s heart hammers a little when Mrs. Martinez opens the door and draws her into a hug, arms warm and soft.
When they pull apart, her worn hands gently rest on Nat’s bump. “Aye, mija,” she whispers. “Look at you.”
Nat blushes and musters all her tenderness into a warm smile. Travis lingers close behind her, eyes downcast and smile tight. “ Hola, mama,” he calls softly from behind her.
Mrs. Martinez rushes into her son’s arms, and for a moment, Nat sees Travis’s face flicker into something younger, like a little boy who needs his mother.
Her hands rest on his cheeks as she takes in his dark eye bags and tired smile.
“Oh, hijo . You always work too hard. Stay for a bit, please. I made arroz con pollo, your favorite.”
Travis hesitates, glancing over at Nat, whose hands rest protectively on her stomach. He opens his mouth to decline, to say that they were only stopping by to pick up a few things, but the thought of his mother all alone in that house weakens his resolve.
Nat gives him a small, reassuring nod. “We can stay,” she says softly.
Mrs. Martinez's face brightens. “Good,” she says firmly, already heading to the kitchen. “Sit, sit. I’ll make you a plate.”
They settle into worn chairs around a small kitchen table, Nat easing into hers slowly. Travis watches her closely, as if afraid she’ll collapse again, but she gives him a small smile.
His eyes fall to the two empty chairs beside them. His shoulders tense and his gaze grows soft, smile fading. Nat’s hands find him under the table and she gives him a small nod. His smile returns, but it’s softer now. Like the weight isn’t really gone, but it’s lighter. He threads his fingers through hers and squeezes a bit too tightly.
The kitchen smells of garlic and spices, familiar and comforting. It reminds Nat of her Nonna, when her only escape from her house and bruising hands would be her grandma’s kitchen. She taught Natalie how to speak Italian and make Gnocchi, focaccia, pasta e fagioli . When her Nonna died when she was ten, Nat had no one. After that, things got worse.
Nat’s reminded of her Nonna as Mrs. Martinez moves around the kitchen with practiced ease, ladling steaming portions of arroz con pollo into mismatched bowls. When she plates it before them, her hands pause on Natalie’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“You’re too thin, cariño. You need to eat more. For the baby,” she says gently.
Nat’s throat tightens, but she manages a small nod, grateful and guilty all at once. She picks at the tender chicken and rice, forcing herself to take slow bites even as her stomach churns in unease.
Travis eats more steadily, but his eyes never stray far from her. “We’ll be okay, Mama,” he says between bites, trying to sound confident, but there’s a tremor to his voice. “We just need to get a few things, some of our old stuff for the baby.”
Mrs. Martinez’s hands still for a moment, her back turned to them at the stove. “Of course,” she says quietly. “It’s all in the attic. Take what you need.”
After they finish eating and helping Mrs. Martinez clean up, they head up to the attic. Travis pauses at the threshold, his gaze falling on the stack of cardboard boxes marked with Javi’s name. For a beat, the old weight tugs at his chest, but he doesn’t feel the anger rising this time. Instead, there’s a quiet grief, a soft ache that no longer chokes him.
“I used to hate coming here,” he murmurs, more to himself than Nat. “It felt like letting go of him. Like forgetting.”
Nat wants to turn away, to bury her face in the wall, but she can’t. She forces herself to stay, to feel every scrap of guilt carving through her bones. She sees Javi’s face in her mind, his body disappearing beneath the ice, her own betrayal echoing louder than her heartbeat.
She places a trembling hand on his arm. “It’s not forgetting,” she whispers, the words bitter in her mouth. “It’s remembering.”
Travis lets out a shaky breath, nodding. He steps forward and carefully opens the first box, pulling out a tiny blue onesie, its fabric soft and worn. He smiles faintly. For once, he doesn’t see his brother as a ghost. Instead, Travis sees him as who he was; not a tragedy, not a body, but an innocent, big-hearted boy.
“He used to kick so much in this,” he says, holding it up. “Drove my mom crazy.”
As he speaks, Nat chokes out a sob. The sound startles both of them, Travis turning around in panic. Her knees buckle to the floor and she sinks to the floor, hands trembling. “Travis,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”
He rushes to her, hands gently cradling her face. “Nat, baby–”
“I’m sorry,” she repeats, voice rising, breaking apart into a million pieces. “For everything. For Javi. For–” her breath catches in her throat, hands pressing hard against her belly as if trying to hold herself together. “It’s my fault. If I’d just–If I’d–”
“Nat, stop. Look at me. Breathe,” he whispers, his own eyes welling up with tears. He knew exactly how Javi had died. Nat had told him once, when they were high out of their minds off coke and oxy and whatever else they could find. He’d mulled over it in his head since then, but he couldn’t find any anger toward her or the others. Just sadness from how young they were, how much they had to endure.
Nat gasps for air, the guilt a physical weight on her chest. “I can’t–I can’t breathe–I don’t know how to let this go–”
“Shh,” Travis whispers, pulling her into his chest. She sobs against his shoulder, her entire body wracked with guilt and self-loathing. He holds her tightly, one hand stroking her hair, the other pressed against her back.
“You were a kid,” he murmurs, voice cracking. “You were scared. We all were. You don’t have to carry it alone.”
“But I do,” she says brokenly into his shoulder. “It’s my fault. Javi was your brother. You should hate me.”
Travis shakes his head, tears gathering in his own eyes. “I could never hate you, Natalie. I know you. And I know that you loved Javi. Just like I did.”
Her sobs soften into quiet, shuddering breaths. She feels the baby shift inside her, a fragile flutter beneath her palm. For a long moment, they just sit there, entangled in an embrace of forgiveness and grief and love, surrounded by remnants of a lost childhood.
“I’m scared,” Travis admits, voice raw. “That I won’t be able to protect this baby.”
“Me too,” she responds.
After a while, they untangle and pick up the broken pieces of themselves from the floor. Travis guides Nat back to the boxes with a watery smile, arms strong around her shoulders.
Box by box, they go through the memories. Travis’s movements are steady, his hands gentle as he lifts out old toys and baby blankets. He pauses here and there, sometimes to tell Nat a story that makes her laugh, sometimes to just look, really look, at the things that once belonged to his brother. The sharp edges of grief soften, leaving space for warmth, for memory, for hope.
Nat fingers the worn stitching on the baby clothes. For a moment, she allows herself to remember Javi, the boy. Not the guilt or the shame or the pain from that winter day. Just Javi, who drew pictures and carved wolves out of wood with his small hands. Javi, who lit up when she talked to him or gave him new gloves. Javi, who would have been thrilled to be an uncle.
By the time they’re done, they’ve gathered a pile of clothes and blankets and parts of an old crib.
When they head downstairs, Mrs. Martinez presses leftovers into their hands and kisses on their cheeks.
“Take care, mi niños,” she utters, her smile soft and somewhat sad. Travis hugs her tightly and makes her promise to call.
“Tell us if you need anything, Mama,” he says. “ Te amo .”
As they drive away, Nat leans her head against the window, eyes red and swollen, yet chest lighter than it’s been in years. Travis keeps one hand on the wheel and the other gently on her thigh.
The silence between them doesn’t feel like a distance now. It feels like an understanding.
A few days later, Nat sits curled on the couch, folding baby clothes in different shades of green and yellow. They hadn’t found out what they were having–Travis wanted it to be a surprise, saying that the mystery was more fun. But Nat had snagged a faded pink onesie from Goodwill, flowers stitched on the front. It’s worn down with time, bits of thread coming off the stitching. Still, when she holds it, she sees a dark-haired, brown eyed little girl, skin dark like her father’s, stubborn like her mother.
Travis sits on the floor, long legs bent awkwardly, poring over instructions for the crib. A screwdriver is clenched in his hands, dark fringe plastered against his forehead with sweat as frustration bleeds through every exhale.
“Need help, Martinez?” Nat teases, lips tugging into a smirk as she takes in the tension in his shoulders.
“Who the fuck made baby cribs so hard to put together?” he huffs. “Why’d my mom have to take it apart?”
Nat sighs, amusement dancing in her tired eyes and she drops down beside him, knees brushing his. She grabs the crumpled paper from his hands and laughs.
“You need a flathead, dumbass,” she giggles, pointing to the screwdriver clasped in his hand. “This is a Philips.”
A look of awe flickers on Travis’s face, followed by bewilderment. “How the fuck do you know that, Nat?”
She stills and grows quiet, handing the paper back to him. When she speaks, her voice is small. “My dad. He used to fix things. Showed me the difference between tools.”
Travis drops the tool and it meets the hardwood with a clatter. He shifts closer, calloused hands brushing over her arm lightly. “You don’t have to–”
“I want to,” she whispers, voice rough. She swallows hard. The guilt about her dad had always been engraved in her. The weight of her past, even before the crash, pushed on her chest constantly, squeezing her heart until it burst.
She had never talked about it. Not even when she had shown up to practice with bruises, or when the Yellowjackets had given her tight hugs, pity in their eyes. Not even when Coach Ben had pulled her aside, worry filling his features as he talked about her number of absences. Not even when she drank or smoked herself into oblivion, stumbling home alone. She thinks it’s finally time to release her father’s ghost from her bones, at least a little bit.
“He-” Nat started, voice shaking. Travis nods his head in assurance, a steady and present force.
“He killed himself. At least, that’s what everyone thinks,” she takes a shuddering breath before continuing. “He wasn’t…a good man, Travis. He was drunk more than he was sober, mean, and just full of this…rage.”
She swallows, blinking hard as salty tears fall from her eyes. Travis held her, silent as he listened.
“He used to–to hurt me. With his hands, with his fists, with his belt. Anything he could find. And he used to…to come into my room at night, the nights he’d get really, really drunk.”
Her voice breaks completely, and she pulls her knees to her chest, whole body curling inward to make herself as small as possible. She used to do it when she was a kid. To protect herself.
Travis’s face twists with anguish. “Natalie…”
“I couldn’t stop it. No matter how quiet I was, no matter how good I tried to be, he’d still come into my room, smelling like beer and sweat and…” She chokes on her own words, tears spilling freely down her cheeks. “And when he was done, he’d tell me to smile in the morning. Like it didn’t happen.”
Travis’s jaw tightens, pure anger and helplessness filling his features. His hold on her tightens, tears pooling in his own eyes.
“I used to go to my Nonna’s house to escape him,” Natalie whispers. “We would speak Italian and make food and just laugh together. She didn’t know. No one did. And then she died, and it only got worse.”
“When I was fifteen, I had Kevyn Tan over, you remember him? He was my best friend. We were in my room, listening to music, when my dad came home early. He heard us laughing and thought–” Her voice fades, replaced with distant screams of a memory ( Are you a little slut? Are you a little slut?) . “He started screaming, grabbing me. Hitting my mom. And I just-I snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Her hands curl into fists at her side, knuckles white. “I grabbed the rifle. I wanted to kill him, Travis, I really did, but I didn’t know the safety was on. He just laughed, that voice that made me feel like I was nothing.”
She wipes a stray tear from her face, a sarcastic laugh bubbling in her throat. “And then he tripped. The gun went off. And he was just…gone.”
A silence settles, thick and holy. Her confession hangs in the air, fragile and delicate. Like with one wrong move, it could shatter.
Travis shifts, pulling her completely into his arms. She folds into him like a second skin, letting herself sob, letting herself cry for herself. Not for Javi or Ben or her dad or Mari or Jackie or Laura Lee or or or . But for herself. For the little girl who didn’t know how to stop it, who cried alone at night and didn’t sleep out of fear. For the teenager who thought numbing the pain was the best way to face it, to fill the void with drinks and boys and weed and pills.
“And I–I’m so scared I’ll fuck this baby up, that I’ll be just like him,” she sobs into Travis’s shirt.
Travis pulls away from her, large hand cradling her cheek as he looks into her eyes. “Natalie, don’t. You’re not him. You’re nothing like him. You’ve survived so much, fought so hard. You’re already better than he was. You’re not a monster or broken.”
She nods because part of her wants to believe it. And part of her does. The part of her that didn’t completely die in the Wilderness with the rest of her friends. And if Travis believes it, there’s a reason to.
“I’m so sorry, Nat,” he whispers. “You were just a kid. It wasn’t your fault.”
She nods again, slower this time, the truth starting to settle. For the first time in years, the ghost of her father loosens his grip on her.
“You’re the first person I’ve ever told,” she admits.
“Then I’ll keep it safe,” Travis responds. “Always.’
The silence that follows is a hush in the storm. Outside, the wind stirs in the trees. Inside, Nat allows herself to breathe.
She pulls back, eyes red yet bright. Nat gives him a crooked smile. “Still need help, Martinez?”
He rolls his eyes playfully, heart lifting at the sight of her smile, “Only if you promise not to call me a dumbass again, Mrs. Martinez.”
“No promises,” she smirks, bumping his shoulder with hers.
They laugh, really laugh, for the first time in a while. For a moment, the light shines through the windows and spills onto them, illuminating the darkness.
October, 1998
A few weeks later, Nat wakes to a sharp, rolling pain in her lower belly. It claws up her spine and wraps around her like a vice. She hisses, clutching the sheets as the pain intensifies.
“Travis,” she gasps, voice thin and cracking.
He stirs beside her, disoriented. “What is it? Natalie?”
She tries to sit up, but her belly tightens again, a deep, grinding pressure. “Something’s wrong. The baby’s coming.”
Travis’s eyes fly open, panic dilating his pupils. “Shit, no, it’s too early–”
“I know,” she breathes, tears slipping down her cheeks. “But it’s happening.”
Without wasting another second, Travis scrambles to the phone hanging on the wall. He calls for an ambulance, voice shaking but determined. “My wife’s in labor, she’s early. Hurry, please.”
Nat doubles over, hands pressing against her swollen belly. Another contraction hits her like a wave, forcing a scream from her lips. It feels like her whole body’s splitting in two.
“Breathe, baby, breathe,” Travis whispers, crouching beside her, one hand bracing her back while the other clutches hers tightly. His own fear hovers over his calm, but he won’t let it crack to the surface.
The minutes drag on, each contraction worse than the last. By the time the paramedics arrive, Nat’s drenched in sweat, breathing ragged and uneven. Travis helps her onto the stretcher, his lips brushing her temple. “I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”
Nat’s world tilts and buckles as contractions tear through her. She’s dimly aware of the sound of an ambulance siren, then bright fluorescent lights flashing above, a clatter of gurney wheels against linoleum. And for a moment, she’s scared. Scared like the little girl who hid under her blankets at her dad’s footsteps. Like the teenager who only knew hunger and violence.
The pain eclipses everything, a tidal wave pulling her under. Her belly clenches, twisting hard as a vice. She screams, her voice raw and animal.
But then she feels Travis’s hand wrap around hers, his knuckles white, lips murmuring encouragement as he stumbles alongside the stretcher. His face is deathly white, eyes wide in panic. But he’s not leaving her side, and the fear loosens its grip somewhat.
They burst into the delivery room, a flurry of nurses pulling her on a sterile bed. The hospital gown clings to her sweat-slick skin, hair plastering onto her forehead. Her legs tremble as a contraction rips through her again, back arching from the intensity, hands clutching desperately at Travis.
“Fuck, it hurts! God, it fucking hurts,” she sobs, terror rising like bile.
“You’re doing so good, baby,” Travis murmurs, brushing damp strands of hair from her face. His voice cracks. “You’re so strong, Natalie. It’s almost over.”
The pain isn’t just in her body. It’s in her body, it’s her past, it’s every dark night pressing against her skin. Her mind splinters into fragments from the pure, fiery pain. The smell of whiskey and sweat, the feeling of her father’s hands on her, her own muffled cries in her pillow, the taste of human meat.
Natalie always thought she would die young; overdosed on pills and coke and her own anger, crushed under the weight of what she’d done to survive. But she didn’t. She’d clawed her way out of the Wilderness. She’d clawed her way out of her own self-destruction. And now she was here, breaking apart to bring life into the world, when all she’d thought she was capable of was taking away.
Another contraction slams her like a fist. She sobs. “I can’t-I can’t-”
“Yes, you can,” Travis says fiercely, voice cracking with tears. “You’ve survived everything. You can fucking do this, Nat. You can do this.”
His words echo deep somewhere inside of her, through the walls she’d built to protect herself. He’s speaking to every part of her; the little girl who’d hidden in closets, the teenager who’d numbed herself with alcohol and pills, the survivor who’d stumbled out of the woods but never out of her own pain. Nat had never believed she was strong enough. But now, now maybe she was.
The next contraction comes like a storm surge. She screams, not caring who hears, not caring if the whole world hears. She pushes with everything she has, the weight of every scar and every ghost pressing on her, her body splitting from the force of it.
And then, through the haze of pain and panic, there’s a sharp cry, piercing the sterile air.
“It’s a girl,” the doctor says, voice calm and triumphant. “Congratulations, Mrs. Martinez.”
“You did it,” Travis squeezes her hand tightly as tears fall from his face, forehead meeting hers. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”
Nat collapses against the pillows, gasping and trembling, sweat and tears pouring down her face. The world wavers around her, but then her baby’s placed on her chest, slick and small and perfect. Her daughter’s fists curl against her, her heartbeat a delicate flutter against Nat’s.
Nat stares down at her baby’s dark hair, her fragile, squalling body. For a moment, she can’t breathe. Her throat tightens with a flood of memories; her father’s sneer, her mother’s silence, Javi’s vacant eyes, Coach Ben’s bloody body. And the Wilderness, the crackle of fire, the gnawing hunger, the weight of survival pressed into her bones.
But here, now, is something different. Something pure. Something that had come for her, not from violence or pain, but from her own strength.
She whispers, her voice raw and trembling, “Hi, baby. Hi, Elena.”
Her arms ache to hold her tighter, to protect her from every shadow that might follow. Travis’s hand trembles as it reaches down, his fingers tracing their daughter’s tiny hand, tears streaming down his face.
“She’s perfect,” he whispers. “She’s so beautiful, Nat.”
A nurse gently lifts Elena from Nat’s grasp, explaining they have to take her to the NICU for monitoring. Panic twists in Nat’s stomach at the loss of contact, but Travis is there, kissing her temple gently. “I’ll stay with her. I’ll stay with her until you can.”
Nat watches as he follows them out of the room, the baby’s soft cries fading into the hallway. Nurses bustle around her, taking her vitals and exclaiming what a gorgeous baby her daughter was.
She lets her head fall back, closing her eyes, breath slow and uneven. For years, she’d carried the weight of her past, convinced it defined her, convinced she was broken beyond repair. But this moment, this raw, terrifying, beautiful moment, was proof that she was more than what had happened to her.
She is a survivor. She is a mother.
The girl who had once curled up in a closet was gone. In her place was someone new; still scarred, still scared, but stronger than she’d ever imagined. Natalie knows it will take time to heal, to fully face the ghosts of her past. It still haunts her, day and night.
But for the first time in as long as she can remember, she lets herself believe that maybe, just maybe, the future holds something brighter.