Five minutes before Sophia Williams was supposed to sing at Maxwell Thornton’s wedding, she stood inside a bathroom stall with both hands wrapped around her pregnant belly and tried not to throw up.
Outside the stall, three hundred wedding guests were laughing beneath crystal chandeliers.
Inside, Sophia was fighting back tears.
She was twenty-eight weeks pregnant with twins.
And the man getting married that night was the same man who had spent the last six months pretending she—and the babies she carried—had never existed.
Sophia pressed a damp paper towel against her face and stared at herself in the mirror.
The black dress she had bought two weeks earlier had fit then.
Barely. made by .
Now the fabric stretched tightly across her stomach.
There was no hiding the pregnancy anymore.
One of the babies moved beneath her ribs.
Sophia placed a hand over the spot.
“I know,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be here either.”
Her phone vibrated on the counter.
She looked down.
FINAL NOTICE.
Her electricity company.
She turned the phone facedown.
Five thousand dollars.
That was what Maxwell Thornton’s wedding was paying her.
Five thousand dollars for three songs.
Enough to cover several months of rent.
