Beating For Two

Chapter 31

Wednesday, April 27th

Thirty-six weeks and two days

After the conversation that had taken place between me and Harry, I had a hard time falling asleep. Thoughts about Lauren, Harry and myself were thrown back and forth in my head until the point where it was giving me a headache. That combined with the fact that the baby would not, under any circumstances and no matter how much I talked soothingly to him, stop kicking resulted in a rather sleepless night. So when I woke up at nine thirty that morning, I was far from rested and as soon as I'd sat down by the kitchen table to eat some breakfast, I wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.

“Rough night?” Anne asked as she sat down next to me with a cup of coffee and a roll.

“He wouldn't stop kicking,” I said, conveniently enough followed by a yawn.

“You should go lie down then, it's still an hour and a half left before the appointment.”

“Can't, I have to shower and get dressed and all that.”

She wrinkled her forehead.

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure that I need to take a shower and get dressed? Yeah, definitely,” I said with a little smile.

She smiled back, but it faded soon and she looked worried again.

“I really don't like the fact that you stress so much over your situation with Harry now that it's less than four weeks left before you're supposed to give birth.”

“How did you know-”

I stopped myself there, closed my eyes for a second and shook my head.

“Never mind.”

“The walls here are pretty thin,” she said soberly in response to the question I hadn't asked.

My mind immediately went back to all the conversations between me and Harry, the contents of them, and- well, my... personal time, and I felt my entire face flare up in embarrassment.

“Oh,” was all I was able to choke out.

“No worries,” she said.

“I haven't listened in on anything, but I hear you talk quite a lot and it hardly ever sounds like it's about something nice.”

“We do talk about nice things,” I argued.

“It just- well... no matter what we start out talking about, we always end up discussing something less than pleasant. Or at least something that leaves everything between us all tense and awkward.”

“And who's to blame?”

I sighed.

“Both of us. I'm the one to bring the matters up, but he's the one to blow them out of proportion.”

She pursed her lips pensively and took a sip of her coffee.

“I don't understand why you can't sit down and work out all of this. It's clear what the problems are, so it can't be that hard to solve them.”

“In theory, it's simple,” I muttered.

“It's a bit tougher to actually do it. There is no apparent problem, just my wishes and his wishes that can't be united.”

“I thought you both agreed that you have feelings for each other,” she said with a confused crease between her eyebrows.

“Yeah, but he has more feelings for Lauren,” I said, trying to smile. I was pretty sure I failed.