Part 1

I was fifteen years old when I found out I was pregnant.

It was six in the morning.

I was sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at the positive test in my trembling hands, when my mother shouted from the hallway:

“Valeria! We’re already late! Get dressed!”

I quickly wrapped the test in toilet paper and shoved it deep inside my math notebook.

I didn’t eat breakfast that morning.

I couldn’t.

Because somewhere between those two lines on that little plastic test, my childhood had ended.

By the time I reached school, everyone seemed to know.

“There goes the pregnant girl.”

“Poor parents.”

“She probably doesn’t even know who the father is.”

I kept my head down and pressed my backpack against my chest.

But I knew exactly who the father was.

His name was Mateo Rivas.

He was the captain of the soccer team, the son of one of the richest families in town, and the boy who called me my lovein private messages but treated me like a stranger whenever other people were watching.

When I first told him I was pregnant, his face went completely white.

He didn’t hug me.

He didn’t ask whether I was scared.

He didn’t even ask how I was feeling.

Instead, he pulled me behind the school cafeteria and whispered:

“Delete everything.”

I stared at him.

“Delete what?”

“The messages. The pictures. The notes. Everything.”

My throat tightened.

“Mateo, it’s your baby.”

His expression changed instantly.

The sweet boy who used to buy me snacks after school disappeared.

In his place was someone cold and calculating.

“Don’t say that out loud.”

That afternoon, his mother came to my house.

Mrs. Rebeca Rivas arrived wearing expensive heels, carrying a designer handbag, and smelling of perfume that seemed to fill the entire room.

My mother welcomed her politely.

She thought she had come to discuss the situation like an adult.

She was wrong.

Mrs. Rivas placed a yellow envelope on our table.

“Fifty thousand pesos,” she said calmly. “Your daughter can change schools, and everyone can move on.”

My mother stared at the envelope.

My father picked it up.

For one terrifying second, I thought he might accept it.

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