Beating For Two

Chapter 28

After mine and Harry's big talk, the following days passed by in relative silence. I'd half-expected things to change drastically now that we both knew about each other's feelings for each other, but as it turned out, nothing really changed at all. There were a couple of exchanged glances from time to time that may have been a bit more fond than what they would had been a week earlier and the smiles that passed between us may have contained a few unspoken words, but other than that, everything was as it always had been. I'd been wondering if Harry would tell Anne about what had happened between us, but I only had to wonder for one day because judging by the hardly detectable smile that was playing on her lips during dinner the day after, I came to the conclusion that yes, she knew. Not that it bothered me, but it was a slightly foreign concept for me to have adults around me know personal details about the most private aspects of my life.

We both went to the check-up on Monday and nothing out of the ordinary happened there – except for the fact that my weight at thirty-five weeks was at seventy-nine kilos and it almost got me crying before the doctor assured me that all that weight, or at least most of it, would disappear once the baby was born. The question of delivery methods wasn't discussed, but I brought it up and we decided that I was to come in for another check-up a week later – on April 25th at five o'clock – and that we were going to discuss the matter then.

Harry and I spent quite a few evenings in his bed, cuddling up to each other and watching movies on his laptop. It felt great to just hang out without any drama or trouble for once, but I couldn't deny that spending over three hours pressed up close to the guy I may or may not have been completely head over heels in love with without being able to actually do anything more than cuddle, left me feeling horribly frustrated. Frustrated and in desperate need of... anything. Considering the fact that the vibrator Harry had bought me once upon a time was still hidden deep inside my closet back at mum's house, I was forced to settle for my own hand though, and, well, because of the size of my stomach, I wasn't able to reach my fingers where I wanted them. But despite the sexual frustration our movie-nights led to, there was no way I was gonna stop having them, and so I settled for cuddling-sessions followed by quick, whimpering wanks as soon as the door to my own room was closed behind me.

Thursday, April 21th

Thirty-five weeks and three days

Thursdays were horrible. That was the conclusion I'd come to by the time I stepped foot into the house and flung my bag down onto the floor in the entrance hall. My day had started off being exhausting and it still was; the fact that Harry had told me he couldn't drive me home today because he was going out with Lauren right after school didn't help much either. And so I had to ride the bus, which only made everything worse. So Thursdays were horrible, but then again, so were every other day except for Saturdays and Sundays. At more than thirty-five weeks into the pregnancy I was... well, I was big. I'd felt big for quite a few months already, but now it was just... extreme. I felt bigger than actually was, which was something of a relief, but when I now threw a quick glance at my reflection in the mirror, it became painfully obvious to me that my body wasn't exactly as small and slightly curvy as it had been a few months earlier.

I let out an annoyed huff before I tore my gaze away from the mirror, kicked my shoes off my feet and headed towards the kitchen where I heard the familiar sounds of stirring pots and pans. When I walked through the doorway, the first thing I saw was Anne standing by the stove with her eyes directed towards the frying pan, where what seemed to be steaks were simmering in a pool of fat. But then I swiped my gaze around the room, more out of habit than anything else, and immediately wanted to go three minutes back in time and stop myself from walking into the kitchen.

Harry was sitting there by the table and seated in his lap with her lips attached to his cheek, was Lauren. I wasn't quite sure of what to do because as far as I knew, Lauren still had no idea that I was living here and, well, me suddenly standing in the middle of the kitchen here without any further ado would probably seem a bit suspicious.