Coming Home

Chapter 2

Three Years Later

The room was dark, the only light coming from the lightning shining in through the window in the corner. I stood in the doorway, gazing at the small figures curled up on the bed beneath the window. A small smile spread across my face as I walked towards the bed, making sure I stayed quiet so I didn’t wake the boys. My smile grew as I looked down at my sons, seeing them curled around each other.

It had been three years since I left home and it had been the hardest three years of my life. I knew that having a baby and raising it alone would be difficult and I was prepared for that. What I wasn’t prepared for was having twins. Instead of having one baby like I thought, I ended up giving birth to twin boys, which came as a surprise to everyone, including me. Throughout my entire pregnancy, all the doctor’s appointments and ultrasounds, the doctors hadn’t picked up the small fact that there were two babies growing inside me. During the delivery, the doctor said that it was a rare case and the babies’ heartbeats would beat in synchronism and one would hide behind the other, causing the doctors not to detect the second heartbeat.

The week before I gave birth to my sons, Tegan came to visit along with my siblings and parents. They all wanted to be there when the boys were born. During the delivery, Tegan, my mom, and my sister were the only other ones in the room with me. I had considered letting everyone be in the room and then I realized how awkward and crowded that would be, so I made the guys wait in the hall. As soon as I gave birth and the babies were cleaned up and lying on my chest, I had my mom go get my dad and brothers. Everyone had tears in their eyes as they stared at my sons.

“Can I hold him?” Daddy asked, reaching for the baby closest to him.

Nodding, I shifted my arm to hand my baby over.

“They’re beautiful, baby,” Mom said, looking down at the baby in Daddy’s arms.

I smiled in acknowledgement, silently agreeing with her.

“What are you going to name them?” Talon asked, running his hand over the baby’s head that I still had.

“This one is Cain Alexander Fox. The one in Daddy’s arms is Asher Cohen Fox,” I answered almost immediately.

When Cayden and I were together, we would come up with names for our future children when we would get bored. We would spend hours coming up with names and then decide on the ones we liked best. We decided that when we had a boy, his name would be Asher Cain since I loved the name Cain and he loved Asher. When I had my sons, it seemed only right to name one Asher and the other Cain. Even though Cayden and I weren’t on good terms and he didn’t know about the boys, it seemed right to give them his middle names. After all, he’s still their dad.

Mom and Tegan stayed for a month after my sons were born while Rox, my brothers, and my dad had to go back home after a week. I felt bad for Tegan when she stayed since she got in a bit of trouble for it. Her mom is really cool and knows what’s going on with me so Tegan had permission from her parents to be gone so long. She got in a bit of trouble with Liam since he had no idea. She had told him that she was visiting her grandma for a month, but I think he knew she was coming to see me. It killed me not talking to Liam as he had always been one of my best friends, but I didn’t want to risk Cayden finding out. I knew Liam wouldn’t purposely tell him but he still might have let it slip and I couldn’t have that. I would just have to apologize when the time came.