For an instant, my head jerked back before I caught myself and nodded.
Hearing my birth name spoken aloud still startled me. Even though it was printed clearly on my uniform and I had chosen to reclaim it, the sound of it sometimes felt unfamiliar, almost like it belonged to someone else—someone I used to be before my life had unravelled and rebuilt itself into something entirely different. At the same time, there was something liberating about hearing it again. Slowly, I was learning to answer to it without flinching.
I had escaped my past. I had fought my way out of the darkness that had defined so many years of my life.
Yet my present still made me doubt myself.
The reality of being a single, pregnant mother weighed heavily on my mind, and there were moments when the uncertainty crept in quietly, whispering questions I could never quite silence. Would I truly be able to build a stable life for my children? Would this new beginning hold, or would something else tear it apart?
Sitting in the Tipsy Cow restaurant for the second time in a week, I watched Lucas happily munch on his pasta. His small shoulders bounced slightly with every enthusiastic bite, and the innocent normalcy of the moment made something warm settle inside my chest.
As I watched him, my thoughts drifted to how drastically my life had changed in only a matter of months.
A week after being discharged from the hospital, my entire world had shifted from one city to another. Packers and movers had emptied my apartment in four hours and transported everything into the new house as if my former life had simply been folded neatly into boxes and relocated. Even my identity had changed. The name tag on my uniform now readJiya Floresinstead ofNyah Rodriguez. My location had changed from the vibrant, busy streets of Downtown Vancouver to a quiet seaside village on Vancouver Island called Cowichan Bay. I was no longer the General Manager of the Lexington Hotel. Instead, I now worked as a front desk agent at the Cowichan Bay Ocean Hotel. The title was smaller. The responsibilities were smaller. But the peace was bigger.
Jeremy Lipster—my stalker and foster father—was no longer in the picture. I was free and no longer lived in constant fear.
At least that was what I told myself.
Yet hearing my birth name called after eight long years still made my body shudder as memories surfaced, whether I wanted them to or not.
Outside, the rain poured down heavily. The wind lashed sheets of water against the restaurant windows while branches bent under the force of the storm. Lightning flashed across the sky, briefly illuminating the dark clouds before thunder rolled loudly enough to make the glass tremble.
I found myself staring at the storm. There was something familiar about its intensity. Relentless. Unforgiving. The way my life had felt for so many years.
“That’s going to be $21.79, dear,” Jack said, pulling me gently back from my thoughts.
I opened my wallet, searched for the money, slipped $25 into the billfold, and pushed it toward him. Then I stood and helped Lucas into his raincoat while glancing around the restaurant.
A man sat at the corner table drinking his beer. At first glance, there was nothing particularly remarkable about him. His shabby, unkempt clothes blended easily into the casual atmosphere of the restaurant, and his dark beard looked as though it had not seen a razor in days.
Still, something about him caught my attention. Perhaps it was the way he sat too still, his shoulders slightly hunched forward as if he were listening carefully to everything around him. Or perhaps it was simply instinct.
After everything I had lived through, my instincts rarely ignored small details anymore.
“You’re new here?” Jack asked while handing over the change in the billfold.
I nodded.
He smiled warmly. “I’m Jack Bortelini. Nice to meet you both.”
Towering over me, he had greeted Lucas and me with the same warm smile when we had first entered the restaurant earlier, completely drenched from the rain.
Lucas opened his mouth, ready to speak.
I gently nudged him and quickly shushed him before he could say anything.
He looked up at me with mild confusion but obeyed, closing his mouth again.
I thanked Jack and took Lucas’s hand as we began leaving the restaurant.
As we passed the tables, I felt it.
That sensation of being watched.
The gruff man in the corner stared directly at us. His eyes were narrowed slightly as he followed Lucas and me with quiet intensity. Something about the look lingered just a moment too long, sending a faint ripple of unease through my chest.
Without thinking, I slipped my right hand into my coat pocket while tightening my grip on Lucas’s hand with the other and hurried out into the rain.
