Addicted to You (Devils Right Hand MC #3)

Chapter 30

A/N: Hi guys! I survived the hardest exam OF MY LIFE!! The last year of grad school is seriously no joke! Sorry this took me a little while to get out, but I wanted to make sure I got this chapter exactly right (which took a while because I was so sleep-deprived). Love you guys!!! Thank you for all of the support!!

There is a trigger warning for this chapter. However, it would be a major spoiler so I'm going to put the TW in the comments of this section. If you want to check, PLEASE DO.

Gabby's POV

What is grief?

That's a question I've been pondering quite heavily given the recent circumstances. People tell you grief is something we feel when we lose somebody we love. It's supposed to be something that washes over us, controls us for a week or two, and then we move on. In theory, it sounds so concise, so sure. As morbid as it is, grief sounds so normal. Oh, what I would do to feel normal right now.

If this were normal grief, I would cry at her funeral, share in all of the good times we had with her friends, and then I would say goodbye and mean it. Normal. I am begging for normalcy in the midst of all this craziness, but it's nowhere to be found.

My mom died one week ago today. One whole week and I haven't cried once since the night I found out. It's hard to cry when I'm not sad she's gone because I know that whatever afterlife she's in, it's better than the life she had on earth. It's hard to cry when we didn't even have a funeral. Grace offered to plan one, but I didn't see the need. Nobody would show up for her- nobody besides me- and I could say goodbye to her on my own.

Maybe I am a little too okay for a pregnant girl whose mom died a week ago. Maybe that just proves I'm crazy. Or maybe I'm still running on autopilot. It's hard to tell. But I don't have the luxury to sit and figure it out. I have to keep moving. I have to put one foot in front of the other. Now, I have a little boy depending on me now.

The past few days I've been staying with Amber. She could go into labor at any second and she doesn't need to be alone, so the one single girl stepped up. As much as I tell myself I'm doing this for her, I think I'm doing it for myself, too. Being alone makes me feel, well, alone. And feeling alone means I have time to think. Thinking about the shit show my life is won't help anything. So I stay busy. I put one foot in front of the other. And I focus on the prize at the end of this journey, a cute, fat, baby boy with my eyes and Axe's nose.

In the end, he will be worth all of it.

"Gabby," Amber says as she pokes my cheek, "you awake over there?"

I release a sleep-filled moan as I stretch in Amber's soft king-size bed. Truthfully, I've been awake for almost an hour, but I don't want her to know that. If she knows I haven't been sleeping she'll worry and that's the last thing I want. Hell at this point she could sneeze and go into labor.

"What time is it?" I ask as I orient myself to the brightness of the room. I've slept in Amber's bed for almost a week straight. We can say it's in case she goes into labor at night, but I know it's because neither of us knows how to sleep alone. The only difference is her loneliness is temporary. Mine, on the other hand, is permanent. Well, at least for another nine months. Then I'll never be lonely again.

"Just past 7," she answers as I sit up in bed. Today is my OB appointment and to say I'm excited is an understatement. Today it becomes real. Today I meet the person I already love more than my own life.

It's crazy how much can change in such a short period of time. The last few weeks it's felt like I've been living in a hurricane as my life is destroyed around me, but he is the one thing that keeps me grounded. He's my rainbow after the storm. I could spend my time thinking about the wreckage of my once-happy life or I could focus on the future. Even though the future scares the hell out of me, I know I can do it. I don't know how, but I can feel it in my bones. I can be his mom. And he will be my purpose.