Page 129 of Darling Obsession

I’m standing in the foyer of my family’s home. I’m alone. But I can hear sounds in the distance, coming from upstairs—a door closing. Then the muffled voices of my siblings. My mom.

More than I can hear them… I can feel their sorrow.

I’m supposed to be there, with them.

I climb the stairs to the second floor, and I hear a sound that I’ve never heard here before.

It’s the sound of a helicopter in the distance.

When I get to the top, I see the door to the room where the terrible thing is going to happen, and I know they’re waiting for me.

I walk toward it.

When I finally reach it, I start to open the door.

But before I can see what’s inside, I wake up in a panic, with thewhump whump whumpof helicopter blades in my head.

Chapter 22

Quinn

“Shit. It’s not cooking.”

I’m making breakfast when I realize the quiche I put in ten minutes ago is still cold and runny.

“The oven again?” Mom asks from the breakfast bar, where she’s icing cupcakes for a client. She baked them last night, and the oven was working fine.

“Yup.” I check the elements on the stovetop, but they’re not working, either.

I pull the baking dish out of the oven, cover it, and slide it into the overstuffed fridge. “This place is falling apart,” I mutter, digging through the fridge for other breakfast options. I’m not feeding Mom cereal. “How can we keep putting money into a home we don’t even own?”

“We can’t. The landlord will fix it. I’ll call him today.”

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.” Of course, every time he “fixes” it, it just breaks again. What we really need is for him to buy a new one, but I don’t know if he ever will.

“I wasn’t worried,” she says, but I barely hear her as I start making a grocery list. I didn’t realize we were so low on everything. And I can’t even heat up leftovers, because our ancient microwave died last month. I would’ve replaced it already if my car wasn’t in the shop again.

I feel like I’m caught in an endless cycle of barely making ends meet, and everything slowly but inevitably falling apart around me.

And now I’m pregnant.

I haven’t even told Mom yet. I don’t want to tell her until I feel like I have a handle on it, a solid plan, and I can convince her that I’ll be okay. I can’t become a source of stress for her.

What am I even going to tell her about the father?

You’ll be a wonderful mother, Quinn.

That was the only nice or supportive thing Harlan said to me when I told him I was pregnant. And that was almost a week ago.

The only thing worse than the torment of stopping myself from reaching out to check on how he’s doing is the fact that he’s barely reached out to me. He’s become even more withdrawn, and when I stopped texting him two days ago, he went silent.

I’m dying to know where we stand. I want to know what he’s thinking and feeling, but I’m way too tender to ask him right now.

I feel guilty for springing this on him, as if it were solely my fault. I’m terrified of the future, and my ability to take care of Mom and the baby. And I’ve started getting wickedly nauseous throughout the day. If I was partially in denial that I was pregnant that first day, there’s no denying it now.

I’ve been trying to cope by doing what I do best. Working. Taking care of my responsibilities. Which are now the baby and therefore my health, Mom and her health, my job, our business, and our home, more or less in that order.

Except for when one of them breaks down and suddenly takes priority. Like the damn oven.

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