Dancing Through The Night

Chapter 4

After the fourth message from Harry, I call Tessa. I'm still sitting in my car, my face is wet, the make-up smudged. I haven't had a look in the mirror, but the black on my hands gives it away. Even the steering wheel is a sticky mess from my tears.
I tell Tessa everything that just happened with Harry. She probably can't understand a word under my sobs but even if my best friend does, it won't make any sense to her. I had wanted to tell her about the pregnancy test, but with Caleb, her middle one, being sick for the past week, she had enough on her plate. Tessa just would have felt guilty that she couldn't be with me, and that's the last thing she needs after three nights on a total of eight hours interrupted sleep.

"Lani, whatever it is, tell me where you are, and I'll be right there. It will be fine," Tessa tries to calm me. I can hear her two big boys fight in the background, baby Xander crying, probably in her arms or the bouncer on the floor, and the tired sound of her exhalation. But I'm too miserable and selfabsorbed to worry about her. I need Tessa, and I'm sure Eric, her husband, is home to look after the kids.

It takes Tessa just over half an hour to get to me. She must have left right after we hung up. I'm so grateful to see her and burst into a new crying episode. If you've ever had your heart crushed then you know that whatever others suggest is wrong, and so I don't care about or agree with any of Tessa's ideas like going on a weekend trip away to gain focus, spending the night at a hotel to talk or just going home and eating ice cream all night. The only thing I agree with is that Harry is an ass, but then I immediately feel guilty because I remember that I am pregnant with his child and my child can't have an ass as a father. Is it possible to have the best kid in the world when the father is a moron? That's how it's supposed to be, isn't it? I need to think that my child is the best and cutest.
And that's when I tell myself that I will not shed a single tear over for this cheater anymore. Deep down, I know that I won't be able to stick to my promise but it's worth a try. His loss, I remind myself. Harry just lost me and our baby. His loss, I repeat the mantra in my head.
"Let's go home and have ice cream" I finally agree, wipe the tears as good as I can and get into Tessa's car. Tomorrow will be soon enough to be annoyed with the expensive ticket for parking overnight.

"You could completely ruin him," Tessa smirks behind the spoon piled with double mud chocolate ice cream, before shoving it in.
"I could," I reply, all five hundred ways to pay back Harry I envisioned on the car ride home, racing through my mind. Legal and illegal ones. "But I want to be better than that." I wipe away the single tear that threatens to run down my cheek. "I don't want to be one of those bitter single mums."
"Let's talk baby?" Tessa carefully asks.
I shake my head. Just this morning, I was ready to plan my life all around this baby. Now, I just need time. Re-plan, because the scenario I'm now in wasn't one of the options I had considered.
"Not tonight. I should go to bed and you should be home with your family. I've kept you all day."

I knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep when I told Tessa I'd be fine and was tired. Rolling from side to side in bed, falling in and out of mad crying episodes and temporary mental clarity, my curiosity and desparity gets the better of me at two in the morning and I turn on my phone for the first time since I left in Tessa's car.
Sixteen text messages and twenty missed calls, each had gone through to voice mail. The messages start slimy, apologetic, excuses, before they turn frustrated, then angry and finally sugar sweet. At 11.48pm, the last message had come through. Harry is probably sound asleep now without a worry on his mind. Damn Harry!

I turn off the phone and place it in the drawer next to my bedside table, as if that would stop me from checking. At six o'clock I decide that I tried to sleep long enough. I may as well go for a jog to get some much needed energy to make it through a long day ahead.