Neptune

Chapter 61 | The Little Light

C A S S I E

Seven years ago

I'm pregnant.

I was sitting on my toilet. My hand was shaking when I stared at the result of the test pack in my hand. It was positive.

Now I knew why I'd missed my period for two weeks. I'd never thought that this would happen to me, that I would be carrying Luke's child.

He'd pulled out when we made love last time, but I was aware that we hadn't been completely safe. Despite that, I hadn't taken the morning-after pill—how reckless.

Oh, God, what should I do?

I would take the test again—I'd bought three packs—but there was a low chance that this test result was wrong.

My whole body was trembling. I'd never been this scared my entire life.

*

Four months pregnant

I'd decided to keep the baby. I would never have the strength to do the abortion—I didn't have the heart to do it.

There was another life inside me, and this was mine and Luke's. This was ours. I wanted to keep our child.

When I came back from Hallstatt at the beginning of the year, I was still in the holiday period after my high school graduation.

I hadn't raised any suspicion from anybody. Morgan had never pushed me to go into college, and with this pregnancy, I doubted that I would be able to prioritize my studies.

She'd always wanted to shove me into Hollywood and make me a celebrity, and I was terrified to tell her the news, because that would make her dream vanish into thin air.

But now that my tummy was getting bigger after I'd passed the first trimester of my pregnancy, I couldn't hide it anymore.

Even though I'd tried to hide my morning sickness, Morgan finally found out that I was pregnant. I'd been wearing loose clothes, but who was I to fool?

My tummy had always been Morgan's concern. It needed to be flat, even when I wasn't pregnant.

And she was livid. The nightmare that I'd feared all this time finally came.

She landed a hard slap across my face, making me collapse onto the floor, my hand automatically pushing on the ground to prevent the crash because I didn't want my baby to get hurt.

"You little slut," she boomed, her loud voice echoing inside the entire house, her eyes bloodshot because of her rage. "You fucking whore. What have you done? Did you think that you could just sleep around and get pregnant?"

Tears rolled down my face as I touched my swollen cheek. I turned to her and cried, my lips trembling.

"You're a stupid, useless piece of shit," she hissed, her whole body shaking because of anger. "A baby will not do any good for our future. You're a fucking idiot. Why didn't you tell me earlier? Then maybe we could have done the abortion."

I abruptly shook my head.

"No," I stuttered. "I want to keep my child. This is my body and my child that you're talking about. I want this."

I stared at her with begging eyes, but it seemed to anger her even more.

Morgan pushed me against the wall, gripping my shoulders so tightly that it hurt. I winced in pain.

"You really have nothing in that useless brain of yours, don't you?" she bit out, her voice cold as ice. "If you keep the baby, what about our future? What about the career that I've already prepared for you? You could just kill the child, Cassie."