THE SON BETWEEN US

HIDDEN

I left the city the same day I signed the divorce papers, I didn't give myself any time to think because I know If I did, I might have hesitated, I might have remembered the man he used to be before power hardened him, before silence replaced the affection and before another woman learned his habits better than I ever did.

I packed only what I could carry and walked away from a marriage that had already died long before the law was pronounced.

At the airport, I just sat in the waiting area, waiting for my flight to board. I thought I was done with Ethan's saga then Jasmine, Ethan’s ex-side chick, blocked my path. "Look at you, running away like the weak thing that you are." Her voice dripped venom. "Sienna wins and you just folded? You didn't even fight for your marriage"

I kept my eyes forward and remained silent.

Jasmine laughed. "I also heard that you signed the divorce papers with no alimony, no house, no nothing, why, Ava? Were you too scared to take what was yours?" She leaned closer. "Ethan told me you were soft when we were together, I guess he was right."

People began to watch us but I remained still.

"Ethan needs a real woman," Jasmine sneered. "Someone who knows how to ride the wave, if you know what I mean.”

“You were just a placeholder till he found someone spicy."

My face didn't blink.

Jasmine snorted. "No wonder he can not stay with just you because you don't know how to entertain a man like Ethan Blackwood. Sienna got skills and that is why she is moving in."

The flight attendant called: "Flight 123 to Paris, boarding now."

I grabbed my bag and walked as Jasmine's words hung, "He will forget you by tonight, you are just yesterday’s news ."

As I settled into my seat on the plane, a sigh of relief escaped my lips. I leaned back on the seat and closed my eyes and allowed the hum of the engines to calm my racing thoughts. "He's not worth it, Ava," I told myself. Ethan was never good enough for me.

Jasmine was the first slut he brought home and he boldly introduced her to me as his girlfriend but unfortunately for him, Jasmine had her plans already and that was far beyond being his girlfriend.

Her intention was to get into his heart and when she finally makes it to his bed, she will drug him and steal all his money, his money, his expensive gold and his valuable documents.

I peeped through the window and watched all her moves and when she was about to go home the next day I asked Ethan to search her bag. He didn't regard me at first but when I kept insisting on it, he searched her and to his surprise his beautiful and flawless girlfriend stole from him.

He pushed her out of the house and hugged me tight. I thought that was the last month he came in with Sienna.

If not for the flirting habit of Ethan, cheap slut like Jasmine and Sienna would not have the right to talk to me not to talk of Jasmine even blocking me at the airport and blabbering.

I just let that wave.

My hand rested unconsciously on my stomach, though nothing had changed physically yet, no bum, no movement but I felt that quiet awareness that my body was no longer mine alone. The nausea came and went during the journey, leaving me so pale and exhausted.

When I arrived at the small town I had chosen just far enough to disappear and close enough to survive, night had already fallen.

I dragged my suitcase into the modest room I had rented in advance and locked the door behind me. The room smelled faintly of detergent and old wood, it wasn’t luxurious nor was it impressive but it was mine.

I sank onto the bed and stared at the ceiling listening to my heartbeat slowly, just then Ethan’s face surfaced in my mind without permission.

I turned onto my side curling slightly with one arm wrapped protectively around my abdomen. “You are actually wrong,” I whispered. “I will survive for me and my child.”

The early months were quiet, difficult and also lonely. Some mornings, I couldn’t keep food down at all and other days, the exhaustion pressed so heavily on my chest that even standing felt like a huge task but I endured.

I found a little work just enough to get by and to keep going, I took whatever came my way, I also learnt how to stretch every penny trying to push through all the exhaustion and fear and to remind myself daily that survival itself was a quiet kind of victory.

Though there were really dangerous moments, when I almost reached for my phone, when fear whispered to me that Ethan had a right to know and then I remembered how easily he let me go and then the urge disappeared and I will also tell myself If he didn’t fight for me, then he doesn’t deserve to know about the life growing inside me.

The day I went into labor, I labored without anyone by my side, I gripped the bed sheets as each wave tore through me, I swallowed every cry that dared to come and refused to give voice to the man my heart instinctively reached for.

Sweat, fear and determination blurred together but I still stayed silent, this pain was the price of my choice and I endured it alone because this fight belonged to me and me alone.

When the nurse finally placed my baby in my arms, the world fell silent. He was small and so perfect, when his dark eyes blinked open slowly. He looked just like Ethan and this realization hurt more than I expected.

For a second, grief threatened to overwhelm me, the grief for the family that could have been and for the man Ethan never chose to be but then my son curled his tiny fingers around mine and everything else faded immediately.

“I’m here,” I whispered with tears sliding freely now. “I’m not going anywhere.” I named him Leo, a quiet and strong name, a name that belonged to him and him alone.

Years passed, slowly and I rebuilt myself, I studied when Leo slept and I worked when he smiled and dreamed again when I thought I had forgotten how, that woman I used to be, the one who waited patiently, hoped and endured disappeared piece by piece and in her place stood a beautiful, strong and unbreakable woman.