Amidst love and heartbreak

No fairy tale

Khloe’s POV

When I was a little girl, at bedtime, my mum would read books about princes and princesses. I loved the idea of the princess finding the prince and living happily ever after in their big castle. I wished for the prince to come to find me and finally live my happily ever after together with him. I always wanted to become a mum, and a wife to my prince, so when I met Eric in high school I thought that ‘the prince’ found me. Don’t misunderstand me, I know I am no princess and he is not a real prince, but I think I was still in love with the idea of love and being loved in general. My mother and father loved me so much but I never saw the love those books described in them as a couple. They probably loved each other but were too rigid to express it in public.

Eric and I started dating almost immediately. If there was an attraction, we thought it was only normal to be together. He is my first everything, my first kiss, my first date, and most definitely my first time sleeping with someone. I was his first everything as well. It was sweet at the beginning, and we were very happy together. We liked the same things. We even went to the same university.

When he proposed on our graduation day I was over the moon. We had a happy wedding and after a couple of years, Emma completed our family. Everything is perfect, right? 

Well, no one explained to me what happens after the princess marries the prince. What exactly is this ‘happily ever after’ everyone keeps talking about? Let me tell you. It’s a scam. They never tell you that the princess should only be pretty and stupid, staying at home cooking, cleaning and making babies. They never tell you what a jerk the prince can be when he pretends he knows everything even though he doesn’t even do half of the things you are able to do. And if I have to be that kind of princess, I don’t want to be a princess at all. 

I learned soon enough the kind of prince I had at home. I immediately knew he loved his career more than me. Don’t misunderstand me, please. He loves me and Emma and he probably would give his life for us if there was a danger at any given time, but sometimes I think that he likes his job a little more. Like every other couple, we had our ups and downs through the years but this last period has been really tough and the fact that we work for the same company doesn’t help.

Yesterday, for example, I went to see mum give her a new contract about the book. I was supposed to come back in time for my meeting with a new author but I got stuck in traffic. What does my incredible husband do? Instead of trying to keep him happy until I came back, he decided to go through with the meeting with him. And he got the contract. Who would do that to his wife? If this was the first time I would have passed this as a coincidence or he didn’t want the company to lose the author, but it’s not the first time. 

I am still thinking about this when the door of our bathroom opens and he comes out after taking a shower. I haven’t spoken to him since yesterday, even though he tried many times. It’s not that he was very insistent but at least he tried. I suspect that he doesn't want Emma to know about our fights so when we are in front of her he acts as normal. Normal? The problem is that our new normal is fights, shouting and definitely blaming each other for everything that goes wrong with our lives. The fact that I am in the sixth month of pregnancy doesn’t help. 

He got dressed in no time and with the shirt still open he was putting his socks on. It’s definitely the hormones speaking but he is still hot after many years that we are together. No, Khloe. Forget about it. I turned on my side and pretended to need more sleep. It’s a Saturday, so technically it’s a day off. Now that I am thinking about is why is he going out? I don’t want to ask, though. Suddenly, the door of our room opens and a sleepy Emma enters immediately jumping in bed with me.

“Good morning, pumpkin,” Eric says as soon as he sees her. His face is finally smiling. And there is a softness in his eyes that I missed. That treatment is only reserved for Emma these days.

“Um… morning, daddy,” she responds while rubbing her eyes with her right fist. Her teddy bear was on her right arm held like a baby. Big sister is practising for when the little brother finally comes. “Morning, mama. Where is daddy going? I thought that we were going to see the baby today…”

“Morning, my baby. I don’t know where he is going, but we can still go see the baby together. Won’t be the first time…” I mumbled the last part. I didn’t want to argue today, but this scan is the most important. We are going to see if everything is developing the way it should.

I saw him tense and turn around to face me. He took a deep breath opening his mouth to speak, then closed it again probably changing his mind. Took another one and then in a voice that was low enough for me to understand he said:

“What time is the scan?”

“What do you care about?” I spat. I don’t want him to come anymore. He can go where the hell he wants for all I care right now.

“What do you mean? It’s my child, of course, I care,”

“If you did, you should have known that I sent you a memo for your schedule with the date and time. But I guess since you missed the last two check-ups, missing this one is just fine,” I said sarcastically. I saw an emotion that looked something like guilt for a split second but then it changed to his usual blank face. 

“I’ll be there,” he said and just left. Where he was going, still unknown to me. I felt Emma cuddle more into my chest and felt a bit guilty for talking to him like that in front of her. She seems fine, though. My baby girl seems so grown up these days. I should get up and make breakfast for us before we get ready. The appointment is in less than 2 hours so there is no time to waste.

“Hop hop, baby. Let’s go get some breakfast and get ready to see baby brother,” I said faking a smile.

“I will get my yellow dress out, mummy,” she said jumping from the bed with her usual joy.

“And I will get breakfast ready for both of us. What does my baby girl want to eat this morning?”

“Can I have french toast?”

“It will be ready in a few minutes. Go brush your teeth and come down to the kitchen,”

“Yes, mummy,” she said and went out of the room in a rush but then came back just as she went. “I love you,” she hugged me and then whispered to my belly where her brother is at the moment. “I love you, baby brother,”

To say that I was shocked is an understatement. As much as I think that she is still in her world of fairies, she is not. For one thing, Eric is probably right. We should be more careful when we talk in front of her.

In less than an hour, we had our breakfast and were ready to leave the house. Emma was wearing her yellow dress and I had a similar one but blue. Emma insisted that we dress nicely to go meet baby brother even though I explained that we have him with us every day and we are just going to see him. Well, in the end, it was just an excuse to cheer ourselves up, at least me.

I drove to the clinic and since we were a few minutes early we decided to sit at the waiting room. I was reading one of the magazines and Emma was drawing. That was one of my favourite tricks to keep her nice and quiet in public spaces. When it was time the nurse became out of the room.

“Mrs Harris, you may come in now,” she said and went back in. Emma put all her colours in her pencil case and took everything with her. She followed me with a big smile on her face.

“Hello, Mrs Harris. How are you today?” Dr Davis asked me then she turned to Emma with a soft smile. “Hey, Emma. Are you ready to see your baby brother?” Since Dr Davis was my doctor since forever she knows practically everything about us. She was there for my first pregnancy and still here for my second. Our relationship was always a professional one but I didn’t mind when she gave a bit of personality to the check-ups.

“Is Mr Harrison joining us today?” she asked innocently without knowing that she hit a nerve there. 

“He had a meeting. We don’t know if he’ll make it but let’s go on,” I said trying to justify his actions even though deeply I was hurt and fuming for his absence. One more time.

_____________________

The scan was perfect. My baby boy is growing healthy and everything seems to be fine. Emma was ecstatic to see the baby moving in the monitor and when she heard the heartbeat, she started jumping up and down in joy. The only problem, my mind kept drifting from time to time to the only person not being present in this appointment. I remember when we were expecting Emma. Eric was the first to remember everything about the baby. He was the one that brought me every day my vitamins and made sure that I had a balanced diet. Even though I wanted to eat pizzas all the time, he wouldn’t let me because it was not healthy. When we had doctor appointments, he was always the one asking questions and trying to understand what was going on with the baby inside. 

As soon as we went out I checked my phone and nothing. No calls. No texts. Nothing. So much for ‘I’ll be there’. I was definitely not in the mood for anymore lies at this point. Whatever he had to do this morning is probably more important than our family and our unborn child.

I take Emma’s hand in mine and we walk out of the clinic but as soon as we step on the sidewalk we find him stepping out of a taxi. Nice timing. I am fuming. It would have been better if we never got to meet each other at this moment. Emma let’s go of my hand and runs to him. Better. I don’t want to discuss this right now. I need time to myself because I don’t want to do this in front of my baby girl.

“Sweetheart, mummy has to go somewhere so you stay with daddy now. I will meet you guys at home later,” I said before I had a chance to change my mind. I saw Eric confused and probably hurt that I left like that, but I really don’t care at the moment. He f****d up. Again. And I am tired of all of this. I am tired of being the second, third, fourth choice for him. He can stay with our daughter and I can have some me-time. I have no idea where I am going but I will just go now.

After hugging and kissing Emma I went to my car and went to the driver's seat. Eric was watching my every move. I could sense him when I was giving him my back and our eyes met when I closed the door and was ready to drive away. There was a mix of emotions trying to come out of him from this staring contest but I was not in the right state of mind to try and decode whatever he wanted to express. Could he speak like a normal human being, just for once?