The heater clicked and wheezed. The carpet had stains that looked like old secrets. The thin walls carried strangers’ voices as if privacy was a luxury item.
Raya smoothed the front of her only decent dress, a navy thing she’d bought from a thrift store and altered herself at the diner during slow hours, needle and thread hidden behind the register.
Sofia slept beside her, finally calm, her tiny chest rising and falling.
Raya’s phone buzzed.
Rehearsal dinner is at 7. You’re still coming tomorrow, right?
— CARMEN
Raya typed back Yes. I’ll be there.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard afterward, wanting to add: Please don’t hurt me again.
A knock hit the door.
Raya froze. She wasn’t expecting anyone.
She peered through the peephole.
Carmen stood outside.
Her sister looked expensive now. Cream coat, glossy hair, earrings that probably cost more than Raya’s rent. But her eyes looked… unsettled. Like she’d been carrying a sentence in her mouth and couldn’t swallow it.
Raya opened the door cautiously.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Carmen stepped inside, scanning the room. The bed. The worn suitcase. The cracked mirror.
Something like shame flashed across her face.
“I came to talk before tomorrow,” Carmen said.
“If you’re here to tell me I don’t belong at your wedding,” Raya began, her voice already sharpening in defense.
“I’m here to apologize,” Carmen interrupted.
Raya blinked, stunned.
Two years ago, when Raya had told Carmen she was pregnant, Carmen had called her irresponsible. A cliché. A cautionary tale. Someone who had ruined her own future and expected sympathy as payment.
Now Carmen stood in the motel room like she didn’t know where to put her hands.
“I said terrible things,” Carmen admitted. “And you didn’t know something.”
Raya’s chest tightened. “What?”
Carmen swallowed. “I was pregnant too. Michael and I had been trying. When you told me… I was jealous. I was angry. And two weeks after our fight, I… I lost the baby.”
The air in the room shifted, heavy and sudden.
Raya’s mouth opened, but no sound came out at first.
Carmen’s eyes glossed. “I buried myself in work. In wedding planning. In pretending I was fine. I made you the villain because it was easier than admitting I was broken.”
Raya sat down slowly, like her knees didn’t trust her to keep standing.
“Oh, Carmen,” she whispered.
Carmen stepped closer, then hesitated, like she wasn’t sure she deserved comfort.
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