a/n
should i publish another chapter bc i posted so late? let me know in the comments !!
WARNING SMUT
The first few days of consciously knowing I was pregnant were strange. All the weird changes I'd noticed before finally made sense. There was a baby growing inside of me, a teeny, tiny seed that would soon grow into a living a breathing human being. This tiny bean inside my womb was apart of me now. We were bound to each other. It depended on me for its life.
What a wild concept. A concept I still wasn't completely sure I was ready to accept as a reality.
I'd never really given having children a passing thought until I'd met Harry. I was certain that if one day I ever decided to have a baby it would undoubtedly be with him. Fast forward years later when actually being pregnant with his baby feels like the worse mistake ever.
Ever since my poorly planned pregnancy announcement, he's done nothing but give me the silent treatment. It's almost as if he never came home because his presence is just as empty as it was while he was gone.
Part of me feels like I deserve it for using it as some form of revenge but a larger part of me feels hurt and angry by his reaction. He wasn't happy like a husband ought to be when a wife shares such life-changing news. He thinks I've done it on purpose. He thinks our marriage is too troubled for us to have made a baby out of love.
He's not wrong about that part at least.
Harry's silent punishment did little to disturb me. I was much too occupied with how I was going to cope for the next seven months. It didn't matter much of what he thought. I was the one the one who had to deal with the physical and emotional changes that would come with the baby I still wasn't exactly sure I wanted.
Having trouble sleeping, I woke up just before dawn and decided to drive out to the beach to see my mom. I didn't even bother giving Harry's sleeping figure a second glance as I tossed on a t-shirt and some jeans.
My mother owned a Bed and Breakfast right along the coast of Carolina beach. The minute she drove her beat-up station wagon along shore she'd fallen in love with the small community. Four year old me had fallen in love with it too. She quickly found work at a hotel with lots of tourist action, a suite with double beds and a kitchen would be our home for the next five years until a hefty inheritance allowed Mom to buy out the hotel. There was a small little antique store next door, an older couple with two rowdy boys lived just above it, the youngest one was just my age and awfully chatty.
All of my best memories had happened along that shore but my desire to branch out grew right along with me. I'd been so eager to leave and so excited to come back once I'd finished culinary school and settled down with Harry but sometimes I wonder just what life would be like now if I'd never left.
The tide was low and the sky was grey, the beach towels and chairs that usually lined the shore were missing as a result of the impending bad weather. The familiar smell of sea salt greeted me as I stepped out of the Range Rover, somewhat calming the raging nausea in my stomach.
"River, back again so soon?" Adele, the head receptionist smiles at me upon my entrance.
Adele was an older lady who'd worked in the hotel long before my mother had been employed. She was very pretty and elegant, the kind of woman who belonged with the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly back in her day.
I grinned, perching my sunglasses on top of my head.
"Mom needs my help more than she'll admit. Speaking of which is she is in?"
"Right in her office," she replies.
"Thanks, Adele."
She nods as I head around the reception desk in route of my mother's office.
