Chapter Text
At college, Wednesday Addams dated a man named Edwin Sinclair.
It was not an intense romance. It was something more dangerous: stable. Quiet. Sustained by long late-night conversations, cold coffee, and the strange feeling that neither of them demanded from the other what they could not give.
Edwin liked Wednesday because she did not ask emotional questions.
Wednesday liked Edwin because he seemed… contained. Almost absent from himself.
They understood each other in that emptiness.
But the discomfort had always been there.
Edwin hated photographs. He avoided parties. He stiffened whenever someone joked about masculinity, the future, children. Sometimes he would fall silent for days, staring into nothing, as if his own body were a haunted house.
Wednesday noticed everything.
She always did.
“You don’t seem to exist fully,” she said once—not cruelly, merely stating a fact. “It’s like you’re always waiting for permission to be someone.”
Edwin looked away.
“Maybe I am.”
It was he who broke the comfortable silence a few minutes later.
“You don’t seem like you’re from here,” he said neutrally, as if making a scientific observation.
Wednesday lifted her eyes slowly.
“New Jersey,” she replied. “And you?”
There was a brief pause, almost imperceptible.
“Utah.”
She frowned for a second.
“That explains a lot.”
“What exactly?” he asked, half-smiling.
“The restrained way you carry yourself. And the fact that you always seem… out of place.”
Edwin let out a short, surprised laugh.
“Fair. Utah isn’t exactly a place that encourages people to be… different.”
Wednesday returned to her writing but kept speaking.
“New Jersey isn’t kind either. It’s just more honest about it.”
He watched her for a few seconds, as if measuring the courage of that bluntness.
“So we’re far from home for the same reason?” he ventured.
She stopped her pen.
“Maybe. Or maybe some people simply need to leave where they were born to discover who they are.”
Edwin swallowed hard. Something about that sentence struck him deeply, even if he couldn’t yet explain why.
“I miss the mountains,” he said, almost like a confession. “But I don’t miss what they expected me to be there.”
Wednesday finally looked at him properly.
“That isn’t missing something,” she said. “That’s grief.”
He blinked, startled.
“Do you always talk like that?”
“Only when I recognize something familiar.”
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. On the contrary. It was the kind of silence that inaugurates something.
The truth came in fragments, never whole.
Edwin came from a family that never learned how to listen.
He was the youngest of four brothers, all molded by the same rigid, silent, competitive standard. Men who learned early not to cry, not to hesitate, not to question. Edwin learned something else instead: how to disappear when necessary.
The house he grew up in was too large and too cold. Photographs aligned along the walls showed generations of identical men: dark suits, restrained smiles, hard eyes. There was no room for nuance there.
Edwin’s mother was the gravitational center of that house—a woman of impeccable posture, measured words, and equally well-organized prejudices. She spoke little, but when she did, it was as if she were issuing immutable rules.
Edwin chose engineering the way one accepts a sentence.
Not because he liked it. Not because he had talent. But because it was the only path offered to him as legitimate. In his family, literature was a hobby. Art was a distraction. Thinking too much was a waste of time. What mattered were numbers, productivity, stability.
Edwin had none of those inclinations.
He liked words. Well-built sentences. Books with annotated margins. He liked imperfect translations, foreign poetry, essays that went nowhere. He liked thinking, not calculating.
In engineering classes, he always sat at the back, trying to disappear. The blackboard was a constant assault: long formulas, symbols that made no intuitive sense, professors who spoke as if everyone shared the same internal logic.
Edwin did not.
He studied longer hours than any of his brothers ever had—not to excel, but simply not to fail visibly. He repeated mechanical exercises late into the night, numbers blurring, slipping out of his mind like water.
Sometimes he would close his notebook and stare at the dorm ceiling, his chest tightening.
“Am I stupid?” he once asked aloud, to no one.
He wasn’t.
He was just in the wrong place.
His hands ached from writing calculations he could not intuitively understand. His eyes burned. The exhaustion was not merely physical—it was existential. Each solved equation felt like a small betrayal of himself.
During breaks, Edwin fled to the library—not the engineering one, but the literature wing. There, he breathed more easily. He picked up books he didn’t need to read. Sat between old shelves as if returning home.
That was where he first saw Wednesday.
She was surrounded by books, as if the external world were optional. Replaceable. She annotated with precision, underlined passages with contained anger. Edwin felt something strange in his chest: recognition.
You look like someone who isn’t in the wrong major, he thought.
He never told his mother he hated engineering. Never told his brothers he didn’t understand numbers. Never told his father he wanted to abandon everything and study literature.
But he told Wednesday.
“I’m terrible with numbers,” he said one night, lying on her bedroom floor, staring at the ceiling. “I spend hours studying what everyone else understands in minutes.”
“Then why do you keep going?” she asked.
“Because stopping would mean admitting I was never the right son.”
Wednesday closed her book.
“You’re not a miscalculation,” she said. “You’re just using the wrong formula.”
He laughed softly. Then grew serious.
“Sometimes I think I’m living the life my family invented for me.”
Wednesday watched him in silence, as if she already understood the end of that story before it reached the middle.
Edwin wasn’t tired of studying.
He was tired of performing an identity that wasn’t his.
And without yet realizing it, that constant strain—academic, emotional, existential—was slowly pushing him toward the only possible movement:
to disappear in order to exist.
Edwin was everything Wednesday was not looking for—and yet, he stayed.
His hair was too light, his laughter too easy, his colors too vivid for someone orbiting her natural darkness. He spoke quickly when nervous and had the irritating habit of trying to decipher Wednesday as if she were an intentional riddle left to be solved.
She remembered the first day they met in the library—he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the comparative literature shelf, surrounded by too many books for someone supposedly studying engineering. He wore an oversized hoodie, hair falling into his eyes, his body restless, as if always one step behind his mind.
“You know those books won’t help you pass calculus,” she said, stopping in front of him.
He looked up, surprised, and smiled crookedly.
“I know. But they help me survive.”
That was where it began.
They started sharing library tables, bad coffee between classes, long nights where Wednesday wrote while he pretended to study numbers but ended up reading poetry in silence. He spoke little about himself, but when he did, there was always a contained discomfort, as if he were playing a role that didn’t quite fit.
“You don’t seem happy,” Wednesday said once, lying on her side on the narrow dorm bed, watching the ceiling.
He took a while to answer.
“I seem… functional,” he corrected. “That’s the best I can manage right now.”
She accepted that. Wednesday always accepted what did not come with easy explanations.
In intimacy, there was something different. He liked touching fabrics, watching the way she moved, experimenting with small things he didn’t know how to name. Sometimes he wore one of her shirts and stayed like that for hours, as if it relieved an invisible pressure.
“Is this strange?” he asked once, insecure.
“No,” Wednesday replied without hesitation. “It’s honest.”
He smiled with relief, but the smile soon faded, replaced by exhaustion. There were days when he seemed on the verge of vanishing, as if the weight of family, major, expectations were pushing him out of his own life.
“Have you ever thought about leaving?” he asked one night, his voice barely audible.
“All the time,” she answered. “But I always come back.”
He fell silent.
At that time, Enid did not yet have a name.
There was only a constant discomfort, like wearing clothes inside out, seams scratching the skin from within. The mirror was a functional object—it served only to confirm she looked adequate enough not to raise suspicion.
At college, people said she was lucky. A “safe” major. A proud family. A predictable future. Each compliment added weight.
Numbers made no sense. Formulas felt like a foreign language imposed by force. Enid spent entire nights studying to reach the bare minimum—not out of vocation, but survival. What truly kept her alive were the books that did not belong there: novels, essays, poetry marked in pencil.
That was how she met Wednesday.
Wednesday did not ask useless questions. Did not try to “fix” anything. She simply observed—and saw.
With her, Enid did not have to fake interest in things she hated. She could talk about texts, about words, about silences. She could remain quiet without being pressured to explain why.
There were nights when Enid wore one of Wednesday’s shirts and felt something close to peace. The fabric fell differently. Her body felt, for a few moments, less wrong.
Afterward, the room was quiet.
Not an awkward silence, but the kind that exists only when two people have crossed something together. The lamp cast long shadows on the wall, and the air still felt warmer than before.
Wednesday lay on her side, hair spread across the pillow, eyes open. Edwin stared at the ceiling, one hand resting on his chest, breathing slowly, as if relearning his own rhythm.
He was the one who broke the silence.
“Do you feel… something different when we’re like this?” he asked carefully. “I mean… with me.”
Wednesday turned her face toward him. She remained silent for a few seconds, weighing the question as she did with all important things.
“Yes,” she said at last.
Edwin turned too, propping himself on one elbow. There was restrained expectation in the way he looked at her, but no demand.
“Different how?” he whispered.
Wednesday held his gaze.
“I like the intimacy we share,” she said simply. “Not just what we do. But the afterward. The silence. Sleeping next to someone without wanting to flee in the morning.”
She paused briefly, organizing her thoughts.
“I never liked sleeping with my ex-boyfriends. It always felt… invasive. Like they occupied a space that wasn’t theirs.”
Something tightened in Edwin’s chest.
“And with me?”
“With you, it’s different,” she replied. “I don’t feel like I need to stay alert. Or like I need to be less than I am.”
He smiled softly, almost incredulous.
“Funny,” he murmured. “Sometimes I feel like… when I’m with you, I can rest from myself.”
Wednesday arched an eyebrow.
“That sounds dangerously sentimental.”
“I know,” he said, laughing quietly. “But it’s true.”
She reached out and touched his arm a small, deliberate gesture.
“Don’t confuse rest with weakness,” she said. “Some people only enter our lives to remind us that we don’t need to be at war all the time.”
Edwin closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing that.
There, in that quiet room—without labels, without grand promises there was something rare: the sensation of being seen without being dissected.
And without realizing it, Edwin thought that perhaps this was the first place where he might be able to exist even if he still didn’t know how.
Edwin took a long time to tell his parents about Wednesday.
Not out of shame—it was never that—but because he knew the ground he would be stepping on.
When he finally mentioned her name during a Sunday phone call, the silence on the other end of the line lasted too long to be accidental.
“Addams?” his mother repeated, as if testing an unpleasant flavor. “Isn't she the daughter of that Latino, Gomez?
Edwin closed his eyes for a moment.
“Her family has Latin roots, yes.”
“We raised you for something different,” his father said, his voice low and controlled—the same tone he used whenever he wanted to end a discussion. “People who are… compatible. With similar values.”
“She’s intelligent,” Edwin replied, his stomach tightening. “More intelligent than most of the people you’d approve of.”
“Intelligence isn’t everything,” his mother countered. “She isn’t the type of girl who fits into our family.”
Type.
The word lingered in the air, heavy with everything left unsaid: origin, appearance, customs, future.
“You don’t even know her,” he said, tension creeping into his voice.
“Precisely,” his father replied. “And we don’t need to. You’re the youngest. You’ve always been… too sensitive. People like her confuse you. Lead you astray.”
Edwin felt his face burn.
“She doesn’t lead me astray. She understands me.”
His mother sighed, as if dealing with a phase.
“This will pass. College things always do. But family is forever. Think carefully before getting involved with someone who will never be accepted at our gatherings, in our photos, in our life.”
After the call, Edwin sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, the phone still in his hand.
Wednesday lay nearby, reading, legs crossed with natural ease.
“They don’t like me,” she said, without lifting her eyes from the page.
He blinked.
“I didn’t even give details.”
“You didn’t need to,” she replied. “People like that always think they can measure worth by surname and origin. It’s predictable.”
A knot formed in Edwin’s throat.
“They said you’re not ‘the family type.’”
Wednesday finally looked at him.
“Well,” she said, with a calm that bordered on cruelty, “your family isn’t exactly my type either.”
There was a brief silence.
Then she reached out and took his hand.
“The difference,” she continued, “is that I’m not asking you to choose. They are.”
Edwin tightened his fingers around hers, realizing for the first time that the conflict wasn’t just about Wednesday.
It was about who he was allowed to be.
The question came simply, almost too casually for the weight it carried.
They were sitting on the couch in the small apartment, lights dim, the smell of cold coffee still lingering. Wednesday had her feet resting on Edwin’s thighs, absentmindedly flipping through a book.
“Thanksgiving is coming up,” she said, without looking up. “My parents asked if I’d be bringing someone this year.”
Edwin’s body stiffened before his mind caught up.
“Someone?” he repeated.
“You,” she replied, finally meeting his eyes. “If you want to.”
The silence stretched. It wasn’t immediate refusal, but it wasn’t acceptance either.
“I think it’s… early,” he said, choosing his words with excessive care. “Too early.”
Wednesday tilted her head slightly.
“Too early to eat with my parents,” she asked, “or too early to exist publicly?”
There was no accusation in the question—only precision.
Edwin looked away.
“To mix families,” he said. “To name things.”
She closed the book with a soft snap.
“I understand.”
But she didn’t seem to understand—she seemed to register.
“My family is… intense,” she continued. “They’re not people who pretend cordiality. If you went, you’d be seen. Truly.”
Edwin swallowed hard.
“That’s exactly what scares me.”
“Being seen?”
“Being definitive,” he said. “Making something too real when I’m still… trying to understand who I am.”
Wednesday studied him for several long seconds.
“I didn’t invite you to commit to anything,” she said at last. “Just to eat. Survive a dinner. Maybe two.”
He tried to smile. Failed.
“I know. And I appreciate it. Truly. Just… not now.”
She nodded once.
“Okay.”
But there was something different in that okay. It wasn’t resentment. It was mental notation.
Wednesday stood, went to the kitchen, and returned with two mugs.
“When you’re ready,” she said, handing one to him, “I’ll still be there. But don’t confuse ‘early’ with ‘infinite.’”
Edwin held the mug with both hands, the warmth seeping into his fingers.
In that moment, he couldn’t tell whether the fear came from her family…
—or from the idea that, with the Addamses, nothing was ever provisional.
“I feel… strange,” he confessed once, his voice low. “Like I’m living someone else’s life.”
Wednesday looked at him with surgical attention.
“You are,” she replied. “The question is how much longer you plan to pretend you haven’t noticed.”
That terrified him.
Because it was true.
His family called often. Asked about grades. Performance. The future. They spoke of Edwin’s name as if it were a promise that had to be fulfilled. They never asked if he was okay.
The idea of telling the truth felt impossible. There was no space. No language. Only the fear of losing everything—including Wednesday.
And then came the recurring thought: if I disappear, no one has to choose between loving me or rejecting me.
He almost dropped out on an ordinary Friday. Sat on the bathroom floor, back against the door, feeling the world shrink. Cried silently to avoid attention. Thought maybe he was too weak to continue.
Wednesday found him like that.
She said nothing. Just sat beside him, leaned her shoulder against his, and stayed.
That almost made him stay.
But staying meant continuing to be someone who didn’t exist.
The decision to leave without telling anyone was not courage.
It was organized fear.
Edwin withdrew from the program on a rainy Friday, signing the papers with a calm he did not feel. He folded the copy and shoved it into the bottom of his backpack, as if the document were a certificate of temporary nonexistence.
He didn’t tell his family.
He didn’t tell his classmates.
He didn’t tell Wednesday.
There were no announcements. No goodbyes. No vague promises of we’ll talk.
On a Sunday dawn, he closed his laptop, stared at the black screen for a few seconds, and made the decision with the same coldness other people used to choose what to wear.
First, he canceled his enrollment.
He told no one. Not his parents. Not his peers. The course he never loved ceased to exist with a few silent clicks.
Then came the rest.
One social network at a time.
He didn’t reread old messages.
Didn’t scroll through memories.
Every possible explanation felt too heavy. Every goodbye, a kind of violence.
He spent the entire previous Saturday boxing up what truly belonged to him—which wasn’t much. Books. Clothes. A few notebooks with crooked notes. An old hoodie of Wednesday’s forgotten at the back of a drawer.
He stood holding it for a few seconds too long, then folded it and placed it in the suitcase.
He pressed delete account the way one rips off a bandage too quickly to think.
Instagram.
Facebook.
Twitter.
Everything.
The phone number was last. He hesitated there, finger hovering over the screen. There were conversations that would never be replaced. Voice notes of Wednesday saying sharp things with disguised affection. Short, direct messages that said more than long texts ever could.
He took a deep breath.
Changed the SIM card.
The phone went silent.
On the computer, he erased almost everything. Papers. PDFs. Random college photos. Meaningless selfies.
But when he reached the folder with her name, he stopped.
Photos of Wednesday on the couch, too focused to notice the camera.
Wednesday wearing one of his shirts, barefoot, with that half-smile she never showed anyone else.
Wednesday sleeping, hair spread across the pillow.
Wednesday looking straight into the lens, as if she knew he would one day need that image to survive.
Those he didn’t delete.
He transferred them to a small, unlabeled flash drive.
Tucked it into the bottom of his backpack, alongside his documents.
When the sun began to rise, Edwin closed the apartment door for the last time.
He left no note.
No clues.
He carried only two certainties:
that he no longer knew who he was…
and that, of everything he was abandoning, Wednesday Addams was the only thing that truly hurt.
In the early hours of Sunday, the campus was unusually quiet. The lights in the academic buildings remained on, indifferent to the decision solidifying within one small room. Edwin closed his dorm door carefully, as if the noise might awaken someone—or something—that would try to make him stay.
He descended the stairs with his suitcase dragged low, avoiding the elevator. Each step felt like a test of conviction.
Outside, the air was cold and damp. The sky, still dark, promised a dawn he would not witness there.
Before entering the car, he paused. He looked back at the building one last time. He thought of Wednesday—not as abandonment, but as an inevitable loss. He thought of her body sprawled across the bed, her expression serious even in rest, the way she never asked pointless questions.
— Sorry, — he murmured, without a concrete recipient.
The engine started quietly, almost disrespectfully for the importance of the moment.
Edwin left the city without music, without a clear final destination, simply following the road that led away from everything demanding he be someone he was not.
As the sky lightened behind him, one thing was certain:
He was not running from Wednesday.
Nor from college.
Nor from family.
For the first time, he was leaving behind the act of running from himself.
And that, even if it cost everything, was non-negotiable.
The decision to leave was not courage. It was organized desperation. He withdrew from classes. Stuffed clothes into a backpack. Waited for Sunday morning, when the campus slept and no one asked questions.
He said no goodbyes.
Because if he looked at Wednesday once more, he would not leave.
In another city, the first days were euphoric. Anonymity was liberating. No one knew him. No one demanded anything. For the first time, his body felt possible.
Then came the guilt.
Every laugh reminded him of Wednesday. Every moment of peace came accompanied by the question: what if I had stayed?
Depression did not arrive all at once—it crept in, slow and persistent. Until the day everything became too heavy.
The psychiatric clinic smelled of disinfectant and tired hope. It was there that someone finally called her by the name she did not yet have—but that already existed within her.
It was there that Enid began to be born.
She wrote letters to Wednesday. Many. None were sent. All said, in one way or another: I loved you even when I didn’t know who I was.
At first, Wednesday treated it like a technical error.
The first message failed to deliver.
The second got stuck on “sending.”
The call went straight to voicemail.
She frowned, impatient, and tried again later—as if persistence were a scientific method.
Nothing.
The next day, she sent only one word:
Edwin.
No response.
Wednesday did not panic. Panic was for those who could not understand patterns. She simply began to observe.
His profile had vanished. Not deactivated—nonexistent. No trace. No tagged photos. No accessible line of the past.
She tried his email.
It returned as invalid.
She went to the college.
His name no longer appeared on the roster. The secretary spoke of a “withdrawal” with the same neutrality one uses when discussing the weather.
— Did he tell anyone? — Wednesday asked.
— Not that we know of, — the woman replied, shrugging.
Something shifted inside her then.
There was no scene. No immediate tears. Wednesday simply walked out of the building, sat on a concrete bench, and remained still as students passed by, talking far too loudly.
He was not busy.
He was not confused.
He was not avoiding a difficult conversation.
He had gone.
For real.
Wednesday gripped her phone, feeling the useless weight of the object. She thought of all the things she had not said, assuming she would have time. Thought of the refused holiday, interrupted conversations, the way he always seemed on the verge of disappearing.
— Coward, — she murmured, without anger. Only observation.
That night, she made no more calls.
She sat at a table, opened a new notebook, and wrote his name at the top of the page, as one records a historical fact.
Then she closed it.
Wednesday Addams did not chase those who chose to become absence.
But, while erasing his name from her planner, she did not yet know that absence had left something behind—something irreversible, silent, growing beyond any control.
The message arrived on the parents’ landline one morning, ordinary enough for what it carried.
It was brief. No requests. No long explanations.
Do not look for me.
I am no longer Edwin.
Now I am Enid.
I am alive for the first time.
I can no longer exist as someone you accepted, but never was.
Do not try to bring me back.
The mother read it three times before she could breathe properly.
The father refused to read it. He said it was a “phase,” a “deviation,” “shame.”
The older brothers reacted as they had been taught: rigid silence, doors closed, the name erased from conversations.
That same day, Edwin officially ceased to exist in that house.
There was no reply.
No attempt to understand.
Only the collective decision to erase.
Meanwhile, miles away, Wednesday still tried to find a logical explanation for the disappearance.
After exhausting all direct avenues, she did what remained: she contacted his siblings.
Short, objective messages. As always.
— Do you know where he is?
— Edwin is gone.
— I need to speak to him.
The reply came hours later. Dry. Brutal.
— He is no longer our brother.
— He is a disgrace to the family.
— We do not want any contact.
Wednesday read it once.
Then again.
On the third reading, she felt something strange—not exactly pain, but a new kind of understanding.
— Disgrace, — she repeated softly.
She asked nothing more.
The logic closed, however absurd:
he had not only left her—he had been expelled from his own name.
Wednesday hung up the phone and sat in the dark apartment, knees drawn up, her thoughts too sharp to allow tears.
She did not know where he was.
Did not know who he was becoming.
Did not know that Enid now existed.
But she could recognize one thing with surgical precision:
He did not run out of lack of love.
He ran because living, in that way, had become unbearable.
And that—this delayed comprehension—was what hurt the most.
Shortly after Edwin’s disappearance, Wednesday’s body began to fail in subtle ways.
She attributed everything to stress.
To the disruption of routine.
To the silence that had settled where a contained, constant presence had once existed.
Classes continued. Books kept telling the truth with the same cold precision. The world had no obligation to stop because someone had disappeared.
But the morning sickness was not literary.
Nor was the delay a statistical coincidence.
Wednesday calculated dates with clinical precision.
Reviewed specific nights.
Remembered Edwin’s almost excessive care, as if each touch were a premature farewell.
The test was positive on the first attempt.
She observed the result with no visible emotion, sitting on the cold dorm bathroom floor, as if analyzing an inevitable historical fact.
— Of course, — she murmured. — Now it makes sense.
There was no panic.
Something worse: clarity.
Wednesday did not try to find Edwin after that.
Not out of pride—but logic. Those who choose to disappear cannot be recalled by biological consequence. She refused to turn a child into an emotional anchor.
She scheduled her first consultation alone. The doctor spoke of weeks, development, possibilities. Wednesday listened with surgical attention, mentally noting every detail.
— The other parent… — the doctor began.
— Will not be involved, — Wednesday interrupted. — By their own choice.
She did not explain who.
That night, Wednesday sat on the dark bed and placed her hand on her own abdomen for the first time.
She did not feel love.
The topic came up without ceremony.
Wednesday did not believe in beating around the bush when it came to matters irreversible.
They were seated at a table tucked away in the noisy campus café, the kind of place that accidentally granted privacy. Aside from Wednesday, there were Bianca, Yoko, and Divina—friends by intellectual proximity, not by delicacy.
— I’m pregnant, — Wednesday said, as if announcing the weather forecast. — And I’m considering an abortion.
The silence that followed was immediate, almost respectful.
Bianca was the first to react. She crossed her arms, eyes sharp.
— You don’t usually consider anything without having already decided half of it.
— I haven’t decided yet, — Wednesday replied. — That’s why I’m telling you.
Yoko tilted her head.
— Are you asking whether it’s morally acceptable… or whether you can live with the choice afterward?
Wednesday thought for a few seconds.
— The second option is more relevant.
Divina exhaled slowly.
— Are you alone in this?
— Completely, — Wednesday answered. — The other party chose to disappear. Quite literally.
Bianca’s expression tightened.
— So it’s not just about the pregnancy. It’s about abandonment.
— Everything is about abandonment, — Wednesday corrected. — The pregnancy only made the concept measurable.
Yoko spoke carefully:
— You don’t seem like someone who would do this out of fear.
— No, — Wednesday agreed. — Fear is an emotional luxury. I’m evaluating capacity. Stability. Consequence.
Divina rested her elbows on the table.
— And what do you feel when you think about terminating?
Wednesday didn’t answer immediately.
When she spoke, her voice was low.
— Relief.
Then… silence.
Bianca frowned.
— And when you think about continuing?
— Weight, — she replied. — But also permanence.
No one interrupted.
— I don’t believe a child should be punishment for poorly made choices, — Wednesday continued. — But I also don’t believe they should exist to fill the void left by someone who ran away.
Yoko nodded slowly.
— You’re trying not to turn this child into a response.
— Exactly.
Divina swallowed hard.
— Whatever your decision, it doesn’t have to be beautiful. It just has to be yours.
Bianca pressed her hand on the table, firm.
— And it doesn’t need to be explained to anyone.
Wednesday looked at the three of them.
— If I have the abortion, — she said, — it won’t be out of weakness. It will be because I know myself well enough to know what I cannot offer.
— And if you don’t? — Yoko asked.
Wednesday held their gaze.
— Then it will be because, despite everything, I stay. Even when no one else does.
The café noise gradually returned, as if the world reclaimed its right to exist.
Bianca was the first to stand.
— Whatever you choose, we’ll take you to the clinic. Or stay with you afterward. No speeches.
Divina nodded.
— No judgment.
Yoko added:
— No disappearing.
Wednesday observed each of them.
— Thank you, — she said. — Not for agreeing. But for staying.
And, for the first time since the positive test, she realized something uncomfortable and unexpected:
She was not deciding alone.
Wednesday did not treat the decision as impulse.
She never treated anything that way.
She made lists.
Dates.
Probabilities.
She researched clinics with the same rigor she applied to analyzing fictional crime scenes: safety rates, methods, legal deadlines, possible complications. She read conflicting testimonials—some regretful, some relieved—and dismissed them all as statistically biased. Emotion was not reliable data.
She was twenty years old.
Twenty years was little time to already carry something that could not be returned to the world without permanent marks.
She considered every possibility.
Continuing college while pregnant, the stares that would come before the questions. Professors trying too hard to be kind. A career interrupted, not by lack of skill, but by lack of margin.
Raising a child alone.
She did not romanticize it.
She thought of sleepless nights, counted money, the body that would never again be only hers. She thought of love—not as feeling, but as continuous labor. Something demanding constant presence, not just intention.
And inevitably, she thought of Edwin.
A child without a father.
In an absence already too large to be inherited by someone who had not asked to be born.
Wednesday sat on the dorm bed, one hand resting on her still-flat abdomen.
— You would be a curve, — she murmured. — And I am terrible at navigating unexpected curves.
It was not cruelty.
It was self-knowledge.
She knew who she was. Knew what she could offer the world at that moment: discipline, lucidity, a functional coldness that kept her whole. A child would require something different. Something she did not yet possess—and perhaps never would, correctly.
The future she had planned did not include gentle deviations. It included precise cuts.
Wednesday also considered what came after.
The silence that would follow if she terminated. The specific type of emptiness that does not bleed, but persists. She knew she would carry the decision as she carried all others: without denial, without adornment.
— Some things hurt less when they don’t exist, — she said quietly, not as justification, but as observation.
She scheduled the appointment.
Noted the address.
The time.
The method.
Folded the paper carefully and tucked it into the book she was reading—as if that choice were merely another difficult, necessary chapter.
Wednesday did not cry.
Did not pray.
Did not ask for signs.
She understood that some decisions are not about courage or cowardice.
They are about knowing, too early, that life sometimes presents a curve—
and recognizing, with brutal honesty, that you would not survive it intact.
Morticia Addams arrived unannounced.
Wednesday sensed her before even seeing her—a nearly imperceptible shift in the air, as if the city had bowed out of politeness.
When she opened the door of her too-small apartment, she found her mother standing there, upright, dressed in impeccable black, gloves on her hands, expression too serene for someone who had just crossed state lines.
— Mother, — said Wednesday.
— My dear, — Morticia replied, with a soft smile. — I hope I’m not interrupting anything irreversible.
Wednesday held her gaze a second longer than necessary.
— Technically, yes.
Morticia did not ask. She never asked before observing.
Dinner was in the evening.
Morticia had insisted on cooking in Wednesday’s small apartment, gracefully ignoring the limited space, modest utensils, and nearly empty fridge. There was something almost ritualistic in her movements—as if this temporary place could, for a few hours, become Addams territory.
The table was set with excessive care for two people. Candles. Cloth napkins that Morticia had pulled from her bag without explanation. Wednesday observed everything silently.
— You always turn any place into home, — she commented.
— No, — Morticia corrected gently. — I simply recognize when someone needs to remember they belong somewhere.
They ate for several minutes without speaking. The sound of cutlery was controlled, almost ceremonial.
Wednesday broke the silence.
— There’s something I haven’t said yet, — she began, voice firm but low. — I’m pregnant.
Morticia did not react immediately. She continued chewing, as if the information needed time to settle into the world before receiving a response.
— I know, — she said finally.
Wednesday raised her eyes.
— How?
— Because you are my daughter, — Morticia replied. — And because mothers recognize changes that even tests cannot yet confirm.
There was a pause.
— It wasn’t planned, — Wednesday added, as if it needed to be recorded. — I’m considering terminating.
Morticia nodded, unsurprised.
— I suspected.
Wednesday took a deep breath. The next part would be harder—not out of shame, but memory.
— The father… — she began, pausing a second. — He’s not here. He won’t be. He left before even knowing.
Morticia set her napkin on the table.
— Was it a choice?
— Yes, — Wednesday replied. — He disappeared. Changed his name. Changed city. Cut all ties. As if erasing himself was the only way to survive.
Morticia tilted her head slightly.
— And you?
— I stayed, — Wednesday said. — Not for him. For me. But that doesn’t make it any simpler.
She pushed the plate slightly away, appetite clearly absent now.
— We were dating in college, — she continued. — I thought I knew him. Thought his silence was just… nature. Then I realized it was escape.
Morticia listened without interrupting. There was no judgment in her eyes—only full attention.
— When he left, — Wednesday said, — I felt anger. Then nothing. The pregnancy came in that gap. As if my body had decided to continue something the other party refused to sustain.
Morticia reached out, touching her daughter’s fingers again.
— Abandonment isn’t contagious, — she said. — He didn’t define who you are… nor who this child can be.
— I know, — Wednesday replied. — But it defined the context. And contexts matter.
— They matter, — Morticia agreed. — But they don’t condemn.
Wednesday was silent for a few seconds, eyes fixed on the candle flame.
— I’m not sad, — she finally said. — I’m… tired. Of having to be an adult too soon. Of having to decide something with no painless version.
Morticia squeezed her hand lightly.
— Growing up is never painless, my dear. Only some pains arrive earlier.
— Do you hate me for considering not continuing? — Wednesday asked, direct.
Morticia raised her chin, offended almost theatrically.
— Wednesday Addams, I would never hate you for surviving in the best way you know.
The air seemed lighter.
— If I continue, — Wednesday said, — this child will never know its father.
— It will know truth, — Morticia replied. — And believe me, that is rarer.
Wednesday exhaled, feeling something settle within her—not decision, but permission.
— Thank you for not trying to save me from myself, — she said.
Morticia smiled—a dark, tender smile.
— I did not raise you to be saved. I raised you to choose… and bear your own choices.
When dinner ended, no conclusion was announced.
But Wednesday realized something essential:
The secret no longer weighed the same.
Because, for the first time since his disappearance,
she was not carrying everything alone.
Morticia spoke as if commenting on the weather.
No urgency.
No dramatization.
She was clearing the dishes when she said:
— Financially, this is not a problem.
Wednesday lifted her gaze slowly.
— It’s not about money.
— I know, — Morticia replied, setting the dishes in the sink. — But money is usually the argument people use to justify fear. I prefer to remove it early.
She returned to the table and sat across from her daughter, hands folded with elegance.
— The Addams family has resources enough to support a child for generations, — she said calmly. — Education, health, safety. None of that would be lacking.
Wednesday narrowed her eyes.
— You’re offering a logistical solution to an existential dilemma.
— I’m offering margin, — Morticia corrected. — Freedom, so your decision is not contaminated by practical panic.
There was a short silence.
— Your father, — Morticia continued, — would be absolutely delighted by the idea of a grandchild.
Wednesday let out a short exhale, almost a dry laugh.
— Delighted is not exactly the word I’d use for Gomez Addams.
— He would cry, — Morticia said naturally. — Dramatically. Then buy tiny black clothes and start planning dangerous, pedagogically questionable activities.
Wednesday closed her eyes for a moment.
— That is… predictable.
— He would also defend you with inconvenient intensity, — Morticia added. — Against any look, comment, or judgment. Even your own.
Wednesday remained silent.
— He would not ask about the father, — Morticia said. — He would not demand explanations. For Gomez, love is enough as origin.
Wednesday rested her elbows on the table.
— I don’t want this child to exist because of family pressure.
Morticia tilted her head.
— And it won’t. We do not pressure. We merely remain.
She paused briefly, choosing her words carefully.
— If you decide not to continue, it does not change who you are to us, — she said. — But if you choose to continue… you will not do it alone. Not emotionally, not materially, not historically.
Wednesday felt the weight of the statement.
— You speak as if you have already decided for me.
— No, — Morticia replied. — I speak as someone who knows her own daughter. And knows you do not fear creating something. You fear failing.
Wednesday did not deny it.
— Failing at what? — she asked.
— At loving properly, — Morticia said. — At not repeating absences. At not becoming something you despise.
Silence returned, heavier.
— Your father leaving, — Morticia continued, — does not mean this child comes from abandonment. It only means they will come from resistance.
Wednesday slowly ran her hand over her abdomen, an almost unconscious gesture.
— I didn’t ask for this, — she said.
— None of us did, — Morticia replied. — And yet, we survive. And occasionally, we build something beautiful from the unexpected.
Wednesday lifted her gaze.
— Do you think I can do it?
Morticia smiled. Not big. Not theatrical. Just true.
— I think that, if you decide to stay, this child will never doubt two things:
that they were chosen —
and that they were fiercely protected.
Wednesday stayed, absorbing it all.
The curve still existed.
The risk was real.
But now there was something new on the map:
Support.
Shelter.
And the unsettling realization that, perhaps for the first time…
She did not have to face the impossible entirely alone.
Morticia left the next morning.
There was no long goodbye. There never was. A light kiss on the forehead, a look that said I’m here even when I’m not, and the carefully controlled sound of the door closing—as if not to disturb anything still in formation.
Wednesday was alone again.
The apartment resumed its functional silence. Without her mother, the walls seemed larger, colder. Wednesday organized everything with near-compulsive precision: washed dishes already clean, aligned books by height, erased invisible marks from the previous night.
None of it worked.
At night, she sat on the couch with her laptop open.
She did not seek consolation.
She sought data.
She watched documentaries about abortion in different countries, different legislations, opposing arguments. She listened to doctors explain protocols, risks, timelines. Then, women.
Women saying: it was the best decision of my life.
Women saying: I think about it every day.
Women saying: I felt nothing.
Others saying: I felt everything.
Wednesday did not fully identify with any of them.
She paused strategically. Took mental notes. Ignored emotional background music and focused on facial expressions when the words ended. That was where truth usually slipped through.
In one testimony, a woman said:
— I had to choose myself.
Wednesday closed her laptop for a few seconds.
— I always choose, — she murmured. — That’s the problem.
In the following days, she became even more methodical.
She read scientific articles. Post-procedure mental health statistics. Contradictory studies. Methodological critiques. Trusted nothing without checking the source.
She also read about maintained unwanted pregnancies. About single motherhood. About women who said it “worked out”—and what exactly they meant by that.
She slept little.
Dreamed even less.
When she scheduled the clinic appointment, she felt neither relief nor guilt.
Just a strange sense of forward motion, as if walking toward something inevitable—whatever the outcome.
The clinic was discreet. Too clean. Smelled of disinfectant and neutrality. No cheerful decorations. No attempt to soften what was, by definition, a hard decision.
Wednesday filled out forms in impeccable handwriting.
Age: 20.
Marital status: single.
Support network: yes (hesitated before marking).
Decision: under consideration.
The doctor was neither cold nor overly nurturing. Just competent.
— You know why you’re here, — she said.
— Yes, — Wednesday replied. — And I know what can technically be done.
— I don’t need to convince you of anything, — the doctor explained. — I just need to make sure you’re informed… and safe.
They discussed weeks of gestation, possible methods, legal deadlines. The doctor explained clearly, without euphemism.
— Some patients come here wanting me to tell them what to do, — she said. — You don’t seem like one of them.
— I’m not, — Wednesday replied. — I just need to know if what I decide will be mine… or merely a reaction.
The doctor observed her closely.
— That is a rare question.
Wednesday took the test. Heard technical explanations. Avoided looking at the screen for too long.
When it was over, she received a simple pamphlet with instructions and possible dates.
— You don’t have to decide today, — the doctor said.
— I know, — Wednesday replied.
Exiting the clinic, the sun was too bright for someone who had spent the last hour discussing interruptions, limits, and irreversible choices.
She walked slowly to the bus stop.
For the first time since the positive test, Wednesday did not think of Edwin.
Nor his horrible family.
She thought only of herself—not as a daughter, not as a potential mother, but as someone facing a precise point in time where any direction would change everything.
The curve was still there.
But now she knew every detail of the possible path.
Every risk.
Every exit.
And that made the decision no longer easy—
just impossible to ignore.