Page 13 of To Hate You

“And if you experience any type of nausea, try some ginger snaps and eat something before you get out of bed in the morning.”

“I will.”

He walked out, and Silas helped me up. “You okay?”

“Yeah...um,” I placed a palm on my forehead, “I’m fine.”

“You know I’m not a sentimental bastard at all, and the thought of babies makes me consider cutting my own balls off. But that...that was fucking surreal.”

“Yeah. It was.”

Silas left the room, and I got dressed. I couldn’t get that sound out of my head. It was already imprinted on my soul, the image carved into every bone in my body. And I couldn’t stop repeating the same sentence over and over inside my head.

I was going to have a baby.

We walked out of the doctor’s office on our way to the lab to get the blood work done and stopped in front of the elevator. Silas turned to me. “What are you going to do?”

My gaze locked on his. “I’m going to have this baby.”

“And Noah?”

“What about him?”

“It’s his baby, Sienna.”

“I know.” I crossed my arms and looked down. “But he made his decision when he left.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t know you were pregnant. This changes everything. He needs to know.”

“And how do you suppose we do that, huh? I don’t know where he is. I don’t even know where to start looking for him.”

“We should at least try.”

“No.” My voice cracked as it echoed down the empty hall. “No,” I repeated, this time lowering my voice. “No, Silas. Noah didn’t love me enough to want to stay. And I would rather be a single mom and do it all on my own than have him in our lives, not because he loves us but because we’re a responsibility his conscience tells him to take care of.”

Silas’ eyes softened with understanding, and he placed his hands in his jacket pockets. “I get it. I do. I just don’t think Dad or Spencer will.”

“They don’t have to get it.” The elevator opened, and we got in. “It’s my decision. And this is my baby.”

Chapter6

Sienna

It’s been days since the sound of my baby’s heartbeat changed my world. Almost a week since that little kidney bean-shaped blob on the screen shook the foundation of my existence. This baby was all I could think about, occupying my every thought. For the first time in so long, Noah leaving me wasn’t the first thing I thought about when I woke up in the morning, even though my heart was still raw with the pain from the hole he had left behind.

I had made up my mind. I was going to keep this baby. But somehow, my decision had turned Noah’s absence into a bitterness that attached black, hardened tentacles of resentment to my heart. He didn’t just leave me; he left us. He left our baby, too.

With every passing day, I became more and more confident that I’d be able to do this without Noah. I didn’t have a choice, which scared me at first. But now, I found renewed strength through my decision to keep the baby.

I settled back on the patio recliner, enjoying the last bit of autumn sun before the winter would come to paint our town a depressing gray. The chill was already in the air, but at least I could feel the sun rays seep through the pores of my cheeks. Most of the leaves had already fallen from the trees, and the russet remains were picked up and carried away by the breeze.

Voices came from inside, and I could hear the distinct shrill of my new stepmother’s voice. I hadn’t seen much of her ever since they came back from the honeymoon, and I chose to see it as God’s way of giving me a little reprieve from the hell I had plummeted in. If I had to deal with her daily and have my dad flaunt his new married life in front of me while my life slowly spiraled, I would have lost my fucking mind.

My phone vibrated, and I picked it up. Even now, weeks after, my heart still skipped a beat whenever my phone rang or pinged with a message. But it’s never him, and I made peace with the fact that it might never be him.

I slid my finger across the screen, and Andrew’s message popped up.

I feel like you might need to get out of the house.

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