Page 23 of Safe and Sound

The door to the bathroom flies open as I’m dry-heaving after vomiting up everything. My body just isn’t done even though there is nothing left to throw up. And then Ren is here, holding my hair back, rubbing my back, acting like he’s concerned for my wellbeing. It just makes the tears come quicker. I lay my head on my arm and try to catch my breath as my heart is in death throes.

He leans forward. “If you weren’t pregnant, I’d bust your little ass so hard.”

His words take a moment to sink in and when they do I shoot up. My legs shake under me and my eyes start to roll in the back of my head.

Arms catch me before I can fall. My mom’s worried voice sounds close by. “Ren! Ren, is she going to be alright? What happened? Should I call a doctor?”

“No! I have someone meeting us at the penthouse.” I fight to come back so I can stop him. There is no fucking way I am going back home with him.

“But, Ren, why would she go back to your penthouse with you just so she can see a doctor who isn’t even her normal doctor?”

“Because…,” our eyes meet and I can tell we are at the top of the staircase, “she’s pregnant, Ava.”

Oh my God! He just…

“And I’m the father.”

I go back out. Darkness is preferable to what I know is coming. More preferable to knowing Ren has ruined my whole life and broken my heart into a million little pieces that can’t ever be put back together again. More preferable to the reality I've just been handed.

Chapter Seventeen

Estella

Iwake up back in Ren’s bed. But unlike this morning, I’m not alone. There’s a beautiful woman standing over me. Everything floods back to me and I shoot up only to end up groaning as a wave of dizziness almost overtakes me.

“Oh, please don’t go so fast. It will be better if you move slowly and maybe stay laid back until the nausea passes.”

This is his lover! She’s everything I thought he would want. Blonde hair is pinned back perfectly, her clothes are neat and put together so well. I can’t help it. I burst out crying. I half fall, half stumble to the bathroom to vomit as she starts yelling for Ren. And just like before Ren comes bursting into the bathroom but this time, I push him away. Or try to.

It doesn’t really work and he ends up scooping me up in his arms and taking me back to the bed so I try another way.

“How could you? How could you do this?!”

“I told you I was going to knock your little ass up and you said yes, yes, yes! You never wanted me to pull out of you.”

Confusion hits me hard and I just sit and look at him now.

“What?”

“I knocked you up, baby, and you begged for it. So, it’s not just me. It was you too.”

The room moves around me as his words finally sink in. “You…we…I’m…”

He nods.

“And you're getting married to someone else!” Now, he looks confused. The jerk! “I’m…we…and you have a girlfriend. You’re serious enough about her that you’re going to introduce her to your dad! What am I going to tell her? What am I going to tell Mom?! Oh, God! I dreamed…you told my mom!”

“I did, princess. Because she -and my dad- need to know. And Stella….I am getting married.”

I start crying. I can’t help it. It hurts too much to try to hold it in. He comes to me immediately.

“To you, baby.”

That has me stopping and looking up, “What?”

Why does nothing make sense anymore?

“That woman your mom was talking about. That was you, baby.”

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