Survive You

Chapter 16.

Thinking back to that awful time, as she sat in the woodchipped living room Beth reflected on how close to death she had been. No one had really believed her overdose had been accidental. It had been, but her arguments had fallen on deaf ears. It stung a little that they hadn't believed her, but she couldn't blame them.

She sighed. Battling the woodchip had lost its lustre. She checked her watch. 02:18. Still early for her. She supposed she could go home and have a bath.

She had just locked the front door when her phone rang. Pharrell Williams song Happy, from the Despicable Me soundtrack sounding from her back pocket.
Nathalie
Her saviour, her lifeline, her daughter.

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While in the clinic Beth had met Alex, a trainee psychologist. She hadn't been his patient, but he had seen her in the gardens one day. Her sadness obvious even from a distance. Concerned for her he had come out to the garden to escort her inside. He had listened to her. She'd started small, telling him about the overdose and about how it had been a big misunderstanding.

Then over time she had told him more.

She had revealed her hurt, her betrayal, her desperation for things to be normal again.
She hadn't revealed the identity of the man who destroyed her.

After she had been discharged from hospital he had waited a couple of weeks, then called to ask her on a date.
Blond, blue eyed and a few inches taller than Jordan's 5'11, Alex was nothing like her ex, so Beth said yes.

They dated for a little over a month before they had made love. It had been a disaster. He had tried to be gentle, tender, loving, but Beth hadn't felt the responses that should have come naturally, that had always come naturally with Jordan. Seeing her tears as he'd climaxed Alex had panicked and pulled out too quickly, the condom falling off while still inside her. Beth had been sure she'd still be ok, she was still taking her pill, as she had for years to combat bad periods. She'd been wrong. The traumas her body had suffered over the previous months, the still sporadic bouts of vomiting, had all contributed to rendering her pill useless.

Beth and Alex had broken up a few days after that disastrous night, so calling to tell him she was pregnant several weeks later had been humiliating. He'd been cool about it though. Over the next thirty weeks their friendship grew. They never got back together but throughout the pregnancy he was there for her.

The night of Jordan's twenty fifth birthday, it had been Alex who had held her 8 months pregnant body throughout the night as she had sobbed for her lost love, her lost dreams, her lost hope. That night she had finally shared her story in full, including the identity of the man who had nearly destroyed her.

When the baby, a girl, had been born Alex had been there. He spent the first six weeks of the child's life at Beth's little flat in Winchester. When the time came that Beth was ok, and he could move home, both he and Beth found that although they were awful together romantically they were the best of friends, and they missed their late night chats, and movie nights.

When Beth decided she needed a bigger house for her and the baby, she got a 3 bedroomed one, and two weeks later Alex moved in as her lodger.

When it came down to naming the baby he had let Beth choose. At the time he'd said it was because he'd no clue about girls names. Beth later found out that was a lie, as when he'd married, he and his wife had three girls, and he'd named them all. He'd just known then that there was never going to be another child for her, because there was never going to be another man. He had been the failed experiment.

Beth had named the baby Nathalie Marcella Eloise. The Eloise had been for her beloved grandmother who had died six weeks before Nathalie was born. Grandmother Eloise had been Beth's rock since her return, pushing her to fight the depression when it fought to drag her down, encouraging her to find the new, strong, capable independent Beth, from the wreck that had been Lizzy. When Grandmother Eloise died she had left Beth the money that with the tour severance pay would spur her own property company, enabling her to break out from under her parents overly protective wings and achieve independence.