Girl in a Hoodie: Where the Future Lies

Chapter 69

James's POV:

"Are you okay?" I ask Riley softly the next morning when she sat at the desk by the mirror, applying a bit of make-up since we were going to Aunt Karla's wedding today. She was wearing a turquoise green strapless knee-length dress (a/n: pic above) of which I had bought for her when we went to NYC and it suited her perfectly, complementing every inch of her body. It wasn't bedazzling, but it was Riley. She turns around and looks at me, pulling the contour brush away from her cheek.

"I'm fine, James," she says. "You've asked me about five times already," she states, somewhere between jokingly and frustratedly. I sigh, sat at the edge of the bed behind her.

"I know. It's just that... with everything that happened last night-"

"What happened last night is in the past now," she interjects. "I know the truth about my mum and I'm okay with it. She died in a car crash, Alice took over the role of being Emily's mother and Liam no longer gives a damn about Em's life. I understand everything perfectly," she says way too quickly for her to be 'fine' about any part of the spiel she had just hit me up with.

"If you want to talk about it, we can, you know." She rolls her eyes and puts the brush down on top of her make-up pallet. 

"I'm done talking about it. Every time I do, it just leads to me crying and I'm completely and utterly done with that," she tells me. "Besides, I'm sick of our relationship evolving around pity. I want to have fun with you, James, and have us both be happy. That is the reason I married you, after all," she grins, smiling a little. I smile softly back at her. She turns around to pick up the newly-bought, heart-shaped, silver earrings she had purchased a few weeks ago and she takes it out of the packaging to clip onto the bottom of her earlobes. I watch her contently and she notices me through the mirror, smirking at my face.

"You're beautiful, you know," I tell her. "I know you had a bit of insecurities about your body when you were pregnant, but you're gorgeous, Riles, and I hope you know that." 

"Thank you," she says cutely. She blushes and then attaches the final stud to the jewellery before facing me once again, except this time she stands up and grabs her matching-coloured purse from off the bed. she leans down by the playmat of which Ellie was laying down on and then Ri smiles and gently picks her up, tucking her purse under her arm to hold our daughter properly.

"You've fed her already, right?" I ask, approaching her and placing my hand on her back. 

"Yeah, both breast and bottle. She should be fine at the church but I'll bring another bottle of milk and a sachet of the medicine along just in case," she responds. I nod and kiss her cheek briefly before rubbing that of my daughter's, watching a smile slowly crawl across Ellie's face. It was beautiful to watch her do that, considering she's been doing it quite a lot lately. She was dressed in a long-sleeved white baby grow with a blue headband around her head. The strands of her brown hair had grown quite a bit, and she wore the smallest size white strap shoes you could think of. "She's cute, huh?" Riley says, noticing how I was looking at Ellie with adorance.

"Yeah, she is. But you are just as much," I tell her.

"You can be so sweet sometimes," she responds, laughing a little. I smirk at the look on her face.

"Sometimes? I try to be sweet to you all the time, Ri."

"I know," she giggles before softening her face and looking at me admirably. "And I love you. More than I love myself."

"You don't get to say that, only I do," I correct her, smirking.

"But it's true. I have very little self-love for myself, you know. Sometimes I just hate myself and I have no idea why," she says sadly. "It's like I judge myself for every little thing that I do but with you, I could never, ever judge you and I've never looked at anyone the way I look at you." She sighs but smiles at me softly and I reciprocate, holding her hand instead of having it placed on her back.