Girl in a Hoodie: Where the Future Lies

Chapter 30

TW: Vague mentions of mental health

Riley's POV:

The next two weeks are spent with James and I going out with Mum, Marcus and Em, although my sister can't always go out with us since she's been busy with the move as her and Hunter managed to find a two bedroom house and although they're not looking to have any children until possibly when it's been five years' time, they put a room for a baby in the presence of their minds when looking.

Mum and I, you could say, have grown quite a bit more closer and it definitely feels like we're actually mother and daughter now which I'm really happy about and I just hope it stays that way. I really don't want whatever Marcus thinks of me to come in between things and completely ruin whatever bond I'm building with Mum just because he disagrees with some of the decisions I've made. Despite the fact he's nowhere near related to me, at least not blood-related, he's definitely making it seem as though he's some sort of father figure to me when he's not. The only father figure I've ever had and will ever have is Dad, even if he isn't at his best. I suppose it's different with Mum though. I mean, Dad and Mum are both blood related to me, but in my eyes, that's not what makes you a parental figure. A parent is someone who's been there for you through thick and thin and Dad definitely has been, Mum, on the other hand? Not so much. I suppose I see Deborah and Ian as parents now. They've really been there for me these past couple of months and I'll be eternally grateful for them.

James and Marcus had gone out to do some errands Mum wanted to do except she had a last minute meeting to join and I couldn't go because I wasn't feeling too great this morning with an extreme migraine followed by a tonne of mood swings. I'm not too sure what it is that's been bothering me lately if I'm honest, I just feel like there's a whole rush of things slowly consuming me to the point where I've got so many thoughts installed in my brain that I don't even have time to process and before I know it, I'm yelling at my fiancé because of his lack of skills in making the bed first thing in the morning.

His argument for that conversation was that I was still sleeping and so even if he tried to, he wouldn't have been able to make it neat and obviously I can see his side of things now but earlier this morning, I really couldn't and tried to reason with him which only lead to another conflict of whether or not we should even share a bed together and that maybe he should just sleep on the couch whilst I slept on the bed.

His way of getting out of this was by kissing me on the forehead, telling me he loved me and then he walked off, closing the door behind him and leaving me in the room to just let all of my anger out by grinding a bunch of inaudible words through my teeth, not that they even made any sense and I was mainly just talking gibberish.

"You alright?" Emily asks me as I try to reach for a pack of crisps from one of the cupboards except I couldn't quite reach. I don't even bother answering as it's clear what I needed help with and she chuckles softly before walking over and taking down the bag of lightly-salted crisps and I smile to thank her in return. She eyes me in a way where I could tell she was thinking of asking me something but wasn't sure how I'd react. "So how comes you didn't tell me?"

"What?"

"You never told me you were still pregnant. What happened?"

I bite my lip and look down, letting my hand move about in the crisp packet to make a bunch of crunching noises to fill up the tension in the air. She clears her throat and out of the corner of my eye, I notice her raise an eyebrow at me as I'm guessing her suspicions are presumably correct.

"Well...?" she urges. I sigh, putting the crisps down on the table on the side and then leaning with my back against the counter.

"I didn't want to tell you because I thought you'd disagree with it and that you'd just end up hating me and never wanting to talk to me again or something. I thought you'd judge me for it the exact same way I've been judged by some people from school and I kind of just didn't want to have to see the reaction on your face," I ramble, not even sure if I was making any sense at all.