The Tragedy: A Hessa One Shot

Chapter 1: Tessa

WEDNESDAY

One of my favorite smells in the entire world is the smell of freshly baked cookies, snicker-doodles to be exact. They're so sweet and festive, plus it reminds me of the time when I was a little girl and I would make snickerdoodle cookies with my mom every year for Santa Klaus. She would tell me, 'a balanced diet is a cookie in each hand', and she wasn't wrong.

Every other month since I've lived in New York, I've come to the Corner Bakery to get a dozen of their delicious snickerdoodle cookies aka the best cookies in the tristate area. A million newspaper articles have been written about them, and I'm so lucky it's only a five minute walk from my house. When I walked in, the store clerk greeted me and smiled as I asked for a dozen of the snickerdoodle cookies shaped like little Christmas Trees. Even though it was nearly the end of January, this bakery believed that Christmas shaped cookies should never go out of season. That's how I knew this would be my favorite place. The lady placed the cookies into a paper bag and handed them to me, the smell of heaven invading my nostrils.

Too bad my favorite smell now apparently sends me over the toilet.

My knees ache as I expel everything in my body in the bakery's employee bathroom. Thankfully the kind lady who rang me up allowed me to use her bathroom when I pulled the pregnancy card, and I was more surprised that I was able to reach the toilet without vomiting all over the floor.

It's been three months since Hardin and I found out we were expecting a baby after a year of constant efforts and constant failures. It was something neither of us were expecting, and ever since that day, we've been so excited to start growing our own little family. Things between us are great, well better than great actually. We got back together three years ago, and that was the best decision I could've made in my life. Since we finally got to a healthy place in our personal lives, our shared life is equally healthy. I never thought we'd get to this point in our relationship where I would be pregnant with his child. If you would've told me at nineteen that I would be having a baby with Hardin, I would've called you absolutely freaking crazy. I'm so glad we've got our happy ending, even though it was a rocky road getting here.

A knock sounds at the door. "Are you alright in there, ma'am?"

"I'm fine." I flush the toilet, stand up and move to the sink to wash the vomit taste out of my mouth. They weren't kidding when they said morning sickness sucks. These past three months have been brutal when it comes to feeling nauseous and vomiting 24/7. Apparently, month 3 is the worst, but it's also the last month, so I'm almost on the other side of this sickness spell.

When I open the door to leave, the woman is still standing there with a concerned expression painted on her face.

"Are you sure you're all right?" She asks.

My cheeks flush in embarrassment that she probably heard me vomiting in that bathroom. "Just morning sickness. I'm still in the first trimester."

"Oh I see. Well, feel better."

"Thank you for letting me use your bathroom." I smile, the move past her to leave.

"Don't forget your cookies." She sticks a larger bag out in my direction. "I made sure to put an extra bag over it to block out the smell. It used to make me sick when I was pregnant, too."

Finally! Someone understands!  "Thank you."

The walk back home goes by super quick, but I do feel a bit weaker after exerting all my energy into getting rid of my lunch. I stumble up the front steps of my small Brooklyn home and throw open the front door. Hardin's sitting on the couch wearing sweats and his black framed glasses, which means he's completely focused on writing. His eyebrows are furrowed and the eraser end of his pencil is placed on his bottom lip. No matter how much easier it is to use a computer, he will only ever use a pencil and paper to write out the early drafts of his latest book.

"Hey!" Hardin smiles once he sees me, then stares at the bag. "Are those from Corner Bakery? Fuck yeah!" He rises from the couch and walks over to me with open arms, but I hold my hand up to stop him.

"What's wrong?" He looks confused as I sulk over to the white board attached to the wall in the corner, erase the number under "DAYS SINCE I'VE BEEN SICK", and change it to zero.

"Oh, I see." He nods, and I excuse myself to go brush my teeth and use a crap ton of mouthwash. When I return, I race over to Hardin and shower him with kisses.

"Sorry, didn't want to kiss you with vomit breath." I plant an extra kiss on his lips.

He grins. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah, for the most part. Just had to get that... action... out of the way. I feel better now."

He shakes the bag in my face and opens it up. "Good because these snickerdoodle cookies aren't going to eat themselves."

"I'm just gonna lay down for a bit." I go to the couch and fall onto it, immediately sighing in relief. "Being pregnant is exhausting."

Hardin moves his finger horizontally, signaling for me to sit up. When I do so, he sits down next to me, then rests my head in his lap. He takes a cookie from the bag, splits it in half, and feeds me half of it.

"How's work going?" I ask him with a full mouth of cookie.

"It's good." He tells me as he runs his free hand through my hair, detangling the coarse strands. "I have a call with Vance in about an hour regarding possibly publishing another book through him."

"Are you gonna do it?" I ask.

He shrugs. "I'm considering it."

"You know that'll make him so happy, Hardin."

"I know. That's why I would do it."

"Well, you should. He's family."

"Yeah, yeah." He rolls his eyes and takes a large bite of another cookie before feeding some more to me.

Hardin's relationship with Christian is a lot better than it was once, but there will always be a bit of tension between the two of them. He's had a few years to come to terms with the reality of who his parents are, but I don't think he will ever one hundred percent commit to knowing Christian as his father. He never refers to him as Dad, and he still calls Ken 'dad' sometimes. He refers to Smith as his brother and Katrina as his sister. There was even one time he accidentally called Kim his stepmom. I never let him hear the end of that one.

"Come on, babe. Just give it a chance." I tug at his arm, pleading with him to give Christian a chance.

"I'm gonna talk to him about it, okay? I promise."

"Good." I reach up and yank the cookie out of his hand. "Oh, Landon wants to know if we wanted to do one final double date this Friday before Nora goes into labor. She looked like she was going to pop any second."

Each month, Nora, Landon, Hardin and I go on a double date. It's usually just a simple dinner at the restaurant Nora works at, but since she's expecting to give birth within the next two weeks, we have to move the date up. Our babies are only going to be a few months off from one another. She's having a girl, but it's too early for us to know the gender of ours, but I'm secretly hoping it's a girl so she can be best friends with Baby Gibson.

"That works for me." Hardin says. "I can't believe Landon is about to be a dad."

"Me neither. You should've seen him today when I went over. He was watching Nora like a hawk the entire time, and Nora nearly killed him at least fifty times. It's a really interesting dynamic."

"Please don't turn into Godzilla when you get that pregnant."

I sit up so I can see him better when I tell him, "I can't promise anything, but I'll try my best."

He chuckles and leans in to kiss my lips in a sweet, tender kiss.

"So I can tell Landon this Friday is good?" I confirm one last time.

Hardin nods before grabbing the remote and turning on the television. He rests one arm around my shoulders and places his other hand on my stomach, rubbing small circles near my belly button. I pull out my phone and tell Landon that we'll see him in three days.

After consuming the entire batch of cookies in one sitting, we spend the rest of the night snuggled up on the couch. It's amazing that this is my life. Spending my nights with the man I love and whose child I'm pregnant with. How did I get so lucky.