Page 1 of Breaking
Prologue
The little plastic stick clattered to the floor. Jenna stared down at it like it had fangs and a forked tongue before bending down to pick it up again with her trembling hands. The bold pink lines confirmed what her body had been trying to tell her but she had refused to believe. Pregnant. The word echoed in her mind, a resounding toll that seemed to drown out all other thought. There was a ringing in her ears and her chest felt tight as she sank onto the cold tile floor of her tiny apartment bathroom, the stick slipping from her hands and skidding across the floor. She wanted to scream, to cry, to run-but all she could do was sit there, frozen. Stupid...how could I have been so stupid.
How could this have happened? Well, she knew how it had happened, of course. She had never veered off the straight and narrow but then she met him. Goodbye, commonsense. They had been religious with contraception but accidents do happen. Her thoughts raced to Troy-the man she'd been seeing in secret. The man who had always been careful to remind her about how complicated his life was, how much he needed her to be discreet. He'd made her feel like she was a rare, precious thing, hidden away not because she was unworthy but because she was too special for the prying eyes of the world. And now?
Now, she wasn't sure how he'd react. Her stomach churned at the thought.
The next day, Jenna dragged herself to class, her limbs heavy and her mind a foggy mess. She sat in the back corner of the lecture hall,her notebook open but blank. The professor's voice was a distant drone, the words slipping past her without meaning. Her classmates seemed to move in a different world, their laughter and chatter buzzing faintly around her like background noise. She felt invisible, a ghost haunting her own life.
At her waitressing job that evening, things didn't improve. She moved through the motions like a zombie, taking orders and balancing trays with a mechanical precision born of habit rather than focus. The din of the upscale restaurant-clattering plates, the clink of cutlery, the murmur of conversation-blurred into an overwhelming cacophony in her head. She was barely holding it together when she saw him.
Troy walked in with his friends. He was planning to join the family business by the end of the month and had just finished his mandatory work experience. His brother, Grant, was with him. Jenna knew of his soft-spoken sister who had recently gotten engaged. It sounded more like a medieval arranged marriage rather than a love match. At that very moment, Troy looked up as if to check if she was watching, only to look away just as quickly before making eye contact.
Jenna's breath caught, her stomach twisting painfully. She wanted to turn away, to leave the floor and hide in the back until her shift was over. But she couldn't. She had to stay and face the music. And when she approached their table to take their order, Troy's eyes barely flicked to her, his expression neutral, dismissive as if she were just another faceless waitress.
Afterward, she tried to speak to him. She waited by the kitchen door, hoping to catch him as he left. But he walked past her without a glance, deep in conversation with Grant. Jenna felt tears prick her eyes, but she held them back, refusing to break down here.
It wasn't until later, as she was leaving through the back door after taking out the garbage, that Troy appeared. He was waiting for her, leaning casually against the wall, his suit immaculate despite the late hour. He gave her a look that might have once melted her, but now it only made her stomach turn. And then his expression changed, morphing into something she had never seen in his eyes.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to sound calm.
"I wanted to see you," he said, his tone smooth but low, as if someone might overhear, “I need to tell you something.”
She stared at him, the words bubbling up before she could stop them. "I guess it is just as well. I need to talk to you too. It's important."
His hazel eyes narrowed under thick dark brows. There was a telltale twitch at the corner of his eye. He frowned, glancing around the empty alley. "I needed to say, my father has been pressing me to get engaged to Lila. You know, my friend Mack’s sister…I need to seriously consider it because they are considering merging companies. I just…I just thought you should know I am thinking about it.”
He didn’t make eye contact after delivering a blow that cut her off at the knees. Then, like he was discussing the weather, he asked, “What is it you wanted to tell me, Jenna? I don't have much time."
The words were out of her mouth like they had a life of their own.
"I... I'm pregnant," she said, the words tumbling out all at once.
For a moment, he didn't react. Then his face went blank, his jaw tightening as he straightened. "Are you sure?" he asked, his voice low and clipped as he fixed his gaze on something just beyond her shoulder, not meeting her eyes.
"Of course I'm sure," she said, her own voice rising. "I did the test four times until I couldn’t drink any more water without being sick.... I thought you should know."
He ran a hand through his hair, his gaze darting away. "This... this isn't good, Jenna. You know that. You know I have obligations."
"Obligations?" she repeated, her voice cracking. "Troy, this is your child we're talking about."
"And what do you expect me to do?" he snapped, his voice sharp. "Do you think my family would accept this? Do you think they'd accept you? I thought we should take a break from…whatever this is. What a total disaster "
The words hit her like a physical blow, and she stumbled back, shaking her head. "So that's it? You're just going to walk away? Just because I am poor and don’t have a pedigree dating back to Robert the Bruce?"
He sighed, still not making eye contact. "I can't... I can't do this, Jenna. You knew what this was."
"And what was this? A ride on the wild side with the waitress of indeterminate parentage?"
He stared at her for a couple of minutes before casually shrugging his shoulders and turning to walk away. She watched as he walked away, his silhouette disappearing into the night, leaving her alone in the cold, empty alley. For the first time since seeing those pink lines, Jenna let the tears fall. She wept for herself, for the future she'd dreamed of, and for the child she now carried, whose life would begin with the weight of a broken relationship.
The streetlights cast long shadows on the quiet suburban street, their faint amber glow seeping through the cracks in the curtains of amodest two-story house. Inside, the ticking of a clock echoed faintly in the stillness, marking time as though it were something tangible, slipping through fingers already worn and calloused from holding on too tightly.
Chapter 1
20 years later
Jenna sat at the kitchen table; her sketchbook open in front of her. The pages were smudged with charcoal, her fingertips darkened from hours of shading and erasing. The house was silent, save for the occasional creak of settling wood and the distant hum of a car passing by. Her pen hovered over the page, but the lines refused to form. Inspiration felt elusive tonight, as it often did these days.
