Home Ice.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Avery

It's Valentine's Day which means it's officially been two months since I was taken in December. Which also means I'm two months pregnant.

I wish I could say that time has flown by but honestly, it has been the opposite. I still wake up every single night plagued with the worst images behind my eyes, still too stunned in fear to even cry out and wake up Finn. I still feel on edge when I leave the apartment and dread when Finn walks out the front door.

He's currently on his first road trip since the incident and to say that he's been anxious about it is an understatement. Texts, phone calls, sending people in to check on me. I think in the past I would have been annoyed at him for treating me like a kid but I can't find it in me this time around. I can't imagine how triggering the experience is for him.

The last time he left, he got a call that is wife was missing. He doesn't say it, but I know that he still blames himself for it all. Not just me being taken in general, but the fact that he wasn't here. That he was working. Besides me being a ticking time bomb of trauma, I know that him not going back on trips after I was brought back home was because of that. He didn't want to feel that guilt again.

But he has a job to do, and a fucking good one at that. Sometimes it feels like it gets lost a little bit because it's become our normal but Finn is a professional athlete. He is one of the best on the team and his absence was really felt over the last two months. This job has been his dream since he was a kid and I will be damned if Mason takes that away from him. Of course I will miss him every time that he is away but I have a life of my own, I always have and it's time I've gotten back to that. It's time that I go out into the world and not be afraid of what could be lurking over my shoulder. I don't have to do that anymore.

That's why I'm at my store. It feels like Finn surprised me with this place ages ago, yet it's only been a little over four months. I've been here a lot the last few days and when I walked in for the first time, I was surprised to see that the flooring and walls had been completely redone. I called Finn and he told me that he hired someone to do it, even though I told him that I was going to do it myself. He said he really didn't want his pregnant wife to be ripping up floorboards and inhaling the fumes, and he knew I'd do it anyway when he wasn't around. He said he decided to ask for forgiveness instead of permission for this one.

Again, if this was a few months ago I probably would have been annoyed at him for making the decision without me but I actually felt relief when I saw it was all done. It looked so much nicer than anything I could have done and it is exactly as I pictured it. Besides, those tasks were easily what I was looking the least forward to so the fact that it's already done is really nice.

You win this time, Finn.

He also told me to not paint yet, that he and Casey will do it because I shouldn't be breathing in those fumes either. I went to Home Depot and got all the cans and brought them in this morning and the temptation is killing me but I'll wait like I promised I would.

Now I'm just finalizing my order for the bookcases I'm purchasing and my God, I'm not used to spending this much money. Trust me, Finn and I are very well off and it's something we can afford but still. I grew up in a true middle class family. We did alright but we lived in a small apartment in Queens for a majority of my childhood. A one bedroom apartment for a family of three with a flex wall in the living room that gave me my own tiny room. The only place we went to before I was 10 was the Jersey Shore, and even that was only once. It wasn't until my dad got a huge promotion that we were able to move into a house on the outskirts of Queens. That didn't last long though, since my dad's affair come out into the light shortly after and we ended up moving across the country.