My Stolen Identity (Complete)

Chapter 21 - Dinner with Knox

**** Friday night - Elodie's Point of View ****

I grabbed my laptop case off the passenger seat along with my notebook and locked my car before heading into Knox's apartment building. I went upstairs and knocked on his door and Juni answered.

"Hey Elodie!" she smiled. "Come on in. Knox is in the kitchen cooking."

"Thank you. Wow. It smells SO good," I said, walking in and suddenly realizing how hungry I was. 

"Yeah. Knox is a great cook. He learned from our Dad and ended up being even better than he was. That's great for me because I'm ALWAYS starving," she laughed.

I looked down at Juni's stomach and noticed it had grown a lot since the last time I saw her, which was over a month ago.

"How's the pregnancy going?" I asked, taking off my jacket.

We both sat down on the couch as Juni said, "I just had a check-up last week and the doctor said the baby's healthy. There's no issues, so that's good," she smiled, looking down and rubbing her belly.

She took a deep breath in and let it out before saying, "Seeing that ultrasound reminded me that there's so much to get ready before it gets here. It's overwhelming."

"Well maybe I could help. I've always heard setting up a nursery is fun," I offered. "I mean, not that I would really know. I'm an only child and I've never really been around babies much."

She sat there in deep thought before saying, "I was talking to Knox about setting up a crib in my room but he said this apartment is too small for three of us. He's actually looking at buying us a house before the baby gets here so it'll have it's own room and a yard to play in when it gets older."

"Awww. That's really sweet of him," I said with a sympathetic smile, feeling a tug at my heart.

"Yeah," Juni said with her eyes turning red and starting to water. A tear ran down her cheek and she said, "I'm so lucky I have Knox," she sniffled. "Besides the baby he's all I've got left."

She hung her head, covering her face with her hands and sobbing into them. It broke my heart. I couldn't even imagine what she was going through.

I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a hug and she leaned against me, sobbing onto my shoulder, crying so hard she struggled to catch her breath.

"I'm so sorry Juni," I said softly, rubbing on her back and I started to tear up too. I was an empath so seeing someone cry like that always made me cry too because I could feel their pain.

"I miss them so much," Juni sobbed, sitting up and trying in vain to wipe her tears away because more just followed. She looked down at her hands, saying in a shaky voice as her bottom lip quivered, "My Mom would've been so excited to be a Grandma. We would've gone shopping for baby clothes and nursery stuff and I would've had to tell her to stop buying so much, but she wouldn't have listened," she cried, getting choked up. "My Dad would've kicked my ex-boyfriend's ass off for ditching me to raise a baby all alone and my brother Noah would've teased me and called me a ho and I would've smacked him and told him to shut up," she laughed through her tears.

She stared down at her hands for a few seconds and her smile slowly faded as she got lost in a memory. She took a deep breath in and zoned out, staring off in the distance before finally saying quietly, "Did you know Knox and I were supposed to go with them that day?"

My eyebrows raised and my mouth fell open in shock. "Really?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah," she sighed. "They were on their way to Noah's baseball game when it happened. A semi crossed over the middle line and hit them head-on on the interstate. The police said there was no way anyone in the car could've survived."