Chapter 1: The Math of Survival

Kai had forty-seven dollars.

Rent was three hundred and twelve, due Saturday. Today was Wednesday. This shift would pay sixty-five after taxes, assuming Marco didn't dock him again for the plates he'd broken last week. That put him at one hundred and twelve total. He needed two hundred more.

The numbers ran on loop in his head while his hands moved on autopilot, coffee pot to mug, mug to table, smile for the customer who didn't look up. Two hundred. He had four shifts left before Saturday. If he picked up the hours nobody wanted, the graveyard doubles, he could pull one-forty, maybe one-fifty. Still short.

The baby kicked.

Kai's hand went to his stomach before he caught himself. Wrong. Obvious. He grabbed a rag instead, wiped down a table that was already clean.

Six months along and the uniform shirt still hid it if he slouched right, if he kept the apron tied high, if he didn't turn sideways under the lights. The bagginess helped. Everything about Kai helped, actually. He'd always been the kind of thin that made people look away, the kind of unremarkable that meant customers forgot his face between visits. Invisible worked in his favor now.

"Kai."

He turned. Marco leaned out from the kitchen window, flour on his hands, expression unreadable. Marco saw everything. Kai had worked at Lucky's 24-Hour for eleven months and Marco had seen him get thinner, seen the holes in his shoes, seen him pocket crackers when he thought no one was looking.

Marco saw, and he didn't say anything, which was worse than if he did.

"Yeah?"

"Table seven wants his burger rare. Actually rare, not your version."

"Got it."

Kai put the order in. Checked his phone. 2:47 AM. The diner had five customers, all of them the kind who came to places like this at three in the morning because they had nowhere else to be. Kai understood that. He was the same, except he got paid to be here.

His back ached. His feet ached. The baby had been kicking on and off for the past hour, like it knew this was a bad time and decided to complain about it. Kai leaned against the server station and breathed through his nose. Four more hours. He could do four more hours.

The door chimed.

Businessman type, tailored coat, shoes that cost more than Kai's rent. He took the corner booth, the one under the broken speaker that never played the right song. Kai grabbed a menu and water glass.

"Evening," Kai said, because his customer service voice still worked even when the rest of him didn't. "What can I get you?"

The man didn't look at the menu. "Coffee. Black. And the turkey club, no tomato."

"Sure."

Kai brought the coffee first. The man was doing something on his phone, frowning at the screen like it had personally offended him. Kai knew that look. That was the look of someone whose problems cost more than Kai made in a year but somehow still kept him awake at 3 AM.

The baby kicked again. Harder this time.

Kai's hand pressed flat to his stomach without permission. The kick pushed back against his palm, insistent, real. He pulled his hand away fast, but the businessman had already looked up.

Their eyes met.

Kai waited for the question, the concern, the are you okay that would lead to explanations he couldn't afford to give. But the man just looked at him for a long second, something unreadable crossing his face, then looked back down at his phone.

"Thanks for the coffee," the man said.

Kai left.

The turkey club took twelve minutes. Kai brought it out, refilled the coffee without being asked. The man ate slowly, the kind of slow that meant he wasn't actually hungry, just needed to be doing something with his hands. Kai understood that too.

When the check came, the man pulled out his wallet. Kai saw the edge of the bills inside, crisp and uncreased, the kind of money that had never been folded in someone's pocket for three days while they decided which bill to pay first.

The man left two twenties and three fifties on the table.

Kai stared at the bills.

The turkey club cost eighteen dollars. The man had left a hundred and ninety. That was. That was more than Kai made in a week. That was the difference between rent and eviction. That was the difference between keeping his phone on and losing the only number the clinic had to reach him.

He picked up the money with shaking hands.

The businessman was already gone. The door had chimed shut while Kai was still counting. He stood there holding a hundred and ninety dollars and his vision blurred at the edges.

"You good?"

Marco, back at the window. He was looking at Kai the way he'd been looking at Kai for months now, that careful expression that meant he knew exactly how not-good Kai was.

"Yeah," Kai said. His voice came out steady. That was something. "I'm good."

He walked to the bathroom on legs that felt disconnected from his body, locked the door, sat on the closed toilet lid. The bathroom was the kind of disgusting that came from being cleaned poorly for a decade, tile grout gone grey, mirror cracked in one corner. Kai had cried in here before. The fluorescent light made everyone look sick, which helped. No one could tell the difference.

He pressed both hands to his stomach.

The baby kicked, gentler now. Like it knew.

"I'm trying," Kai whispered.

His voice bounced off the tile, small and desperate. The baby kicked again. Kai closed his eyes and counted the money one more time in his head. Forty-seven plus sixty-five plus one-ninety. Three hundred and two. Ten dollars short of rent, but he could find ten dollars. He could skip lunch for a week. He could return the prenatal vitamins he'd bought yesterday and just take the free samples from the clinic.

He could make it work.

He always made it work.

The thing was, Kai had been making it work for six months now. Six months of mental math and skipped meals and stealing crackers from the kitchen when Marco wasn't looking, even though Marco definitely knew, even though the shame of it sat in Kai's throat every time he did it.

Six months since the night that had split his life into before and after. Six months since he'd woken up alone in a room that wasn't his, cash on the table, the feeling of hands on his skin that he couldn't quite remember and couldn't quite forget.

Six months pregnant with a stranger's baby, and the only thing Kai knew for sure was that he was in this alone.

The baby kicked.

"I know," Kai said quietly. "I'm trying."

He stood up, washed his face in the sink, avoided looking at himself in the cracked mirror. His reflection never helped. When he came back out, Marco had plated him two eggs and toast, sitting on the server station like they'd been ordered by a customer who'd left.

Kai looked at Marco. Marco looked back, expression flat.

"Eat," Marco said.

Kai ate.

The eggs were runny the way he liked them, the toast was burnt the way it always was when Marco made it too fast. It tasted like survival. Kai finished every bite, put the plate in the dish bin, went back to work.

Four more hours.

He could do four more hours.

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