Chapter 4: An escape from reality
1491 Words
Aurelia’s POV.
I didn’t cry immediately, which, considering everything, felt very unlike me. You would think finding out you’re pregnant would come with instant tears, dramatic music, maybe collapsing against a wall like a tragic heroine, but instead I find myself sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at the test like it had punched me in the throat.
Jolene hovered nearby like I might suddenly give birth out of sheer confusion. “You’re being too calm,” she says carefully.
“I’m not calm,” I reply, still staring at the stick.
“You’re sitting.”
“Yes,” I say, shutting my eyes briefly.
“You’re not panicking.”
“I’m panicking on the inside.”
She folds her arms, unimpressed. “That’s not enough.”
“I don’t have the energy to panic on the outside,” I mutter, though beneath the denial panic had already settled.
“I’m pregnant,” I say finally, and the words felt wrong in my mouth.
Jolene softens. “Yeah.”
“This is insane.”
“It is.”
Silence stretches between us until she asks gently, “What are you going to do?”
That question cracks something open. I looked down at my shaking hands. “I don’t know,” I whisper, and then something shifts inside me, not panic but something protective as my hand moves instinctively to my stomach. “This is my fault.”
“No,” Jolene says immediately.
“It is. I made a decision.”
“You made a choice,” she corrects. “That doesn’t make this a mistake.”
“You don’t understand,” I say, shaking my head.
“I do.”
“No, because now there’s someone else who didn’t ask for this, and I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can.”
“How do you know?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“Because it’s you,” she says with a small smile.
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It should be.”
She sits beside me, steady and present. “You don’t have to decide everything now.”
“I do,” I insist. “Whatever I choose changes everything.” Then I say it, “I can’t get rid of it.”
Jolene goes still.
“I can’t,” I repeat , firmer. “They didn’t ask for this. They exist… they’re mine.”
Everything shifts.
She squeezes my hand. “Okay. Then we keep them.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You’re calm about this.”
“B!tch, if you knew how uncalm I was, you’d be crying for me,” she admits , and I laugh weakly.
“We’ll figure it out.”
“We?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” she said simply. “I want to.”
And that was enough.
******
The weeks that followed felt like living inside a decision I couldn’t undo. At first, I didn’t think about him, but as time passed, his absence grew louder, and the fact that somewhere out there he existed, unaware and unreachable, unsettled me.
“I think I need to leave,” I say one night.
“Leave where?” Jolene asks.
“Here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t feel safe.”
“With me?”
“With everything.”
She studies me for a moment. “You think it’s not safe?”
“I don’t know… but it feels like it.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“We leave?”
“You already decided,” she says, and she was right.
*****
We left two weeks later without announcements or explanations, just two women and one uncertain future, along with a hospital visit that confirmed everything…two tiny, growing reasons to keep going.
*****
THREE YEARS LATER.
Time didn’t blur. I remembered everything. Donny’s first cry had been loud, stubborn, and exhausting, while Lia’s had been softer, almost uncertain.
They looked alike and didn’t at the same time. Donny had warm brown skin and sharp, observant features, always watching, always protective, while Lia was lighter, softer, her curls falling into her face no matter how often I pushed them back, her wide eyes expressing everything without effort.
And their eyes were silver, not mine and not his, but the most beautiful shade I had ever seen.
They were mine, and for a long time, that was enough.
Until it wasn’t.
Silence started to grow louder, not peaceful silence but the kind that reminds you that every decision rests on you alone.
I didn’t need a man, but I needed something steady, and that was when Nathaniel came into my life. He was tall, composed, and controlled, with a calm presence that wasn’t my type, so I ignored him at first.
He didn’t stay ignored.
*****
“You’re hard to catch,” he said one afternoon.
“I’m not trying to be caught.”
“That hasn’t stopped me.”
“You’re persistent.”
“I prefer intentional.”
“That sounds worse.”
He smiled, and somehow I didn’t walk away.
******
He kept showing up, helping, becoming familiar, even after he met the children.
“You have kids,” he said once.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t mention that?”
“It wasn’t your business.”
“It is now.”
I should have shut it down, but I didn’t. He was good with them, and that was the problem. Lia warmed to him first, smiling at his smallest attention, while Donny stayed guarded.
“You don’t have to like me,” Nathaniel told him once. “But you will.”
That should have bothered me more.
******
“You don’t have to do everything alone,” he told me.
“I’ve been doing it alone.”
“You don’t have to anymore.”
At first it sounded like comfort, then it shifted into something else.
******
“You shouldn’t go out.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know. I’m telling you.”
*******
That was the first warning I ignored.
By then, he was part of our routine, and stupidly, I didn’t want to break that, not until it started breaking me instead. His tone changed, less suggestion and more control, especially when it came to the kids.
“They need discipline.”
“They need patience.”
“They need structure.”
“They have structure.”
“They don’t.”
It stopped being a conversation and I would’ve ended it sooner if I had known how bad it would get.
******
NOW
“Mommy, Donny took my toy!”
“I did not!”
“You did!”
“I didn’t!”
“Both of you, stop shouting,” I call from the kitchen, gripping a spoon like it was holding my sanity together. Their bickering filled the house, loud and chaotic, and somehow I didn’t hate it.
A sudden thud cut through the noise, followed by a silence that didn’t belong in a house with children. I turn and see them gripping the same wooden truck, Donny pulling one side while Lia held the other, their faces tight with determination, and a few feet away stood Nathaniel, a glass of beer in his hand, his expression already tightening.
“You’re being too loud,” he says.
They ignore him.
“Stop it.”
Nothing.
“Give it to her,” he adds, sharper this time.
Donny doesn’t even look at him. “No.”
“It’s mine!” Lia snaps, tugging harder as the wood creaked under their grip.
“I said stop,” Nathaniel repeats, his voice colder.
Donny glances at him and looks away, and that was when everything shifted. Nathaniel steps forward slowly.
“Give it to her.”
“No,” Donny replies, firmer.
Lia pulls again and stumbles backward into Nathaniel, the glass slips from his hand and shatters as beer spills across the floor. For a moment, everything freezes.
Then his expression changes.
“You did that on purpose,” he says.
“I didn’t!” Lia’s voice trembles.
“You think this is funny?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
He steps closer, too close, and raises his hand.
Everything in me screams, but before I could move, Donny steps in front of her.
“No!” he shouts.
The sound cracks through the room, and then the hit comes, sharp and wrong. Donny’s head snaps to the side as he hits the floor, and for a moment everything stops, my breath, my thoughts, my heartbeat, because my son was on the ground and Nathaniel was standing over him like it meant nothing.
“What did you just do?” I whisper, my voice unrecognizable.
Nathaniel exhales slowly. “He needs to learn.”
And right then, something inside me… snaps.
- Writer
