02. Her side of the story
Mom collapses in the chair after my admission. The heartbroken look in her eyes was
undoing
1. me. The disappointed look she gave me nearly made me crumble on the spot.
Travis, who had been holding me, lets go as if I had burned him. He backs away from me
slowly
until he’s a few feet away.
I know the rest had varying degrees of shock, but they didn’t matter to me right now. Not
when
my family was looking at me like they didn’t know me. Like I was a stranger.
“Please tell me you’re playing a sick joke on me,” Mom pleads. “Tell me you didn’t have a
child and
kept him hidden from us all these years.”
I want to lie to them just so the heartbroken and disappointed look in their eyes will
disappear. I
know that I can no longer do that. There was no hiding from this. There was no more
running from
the truth.
“I’m sorry. So sorry,” I cry as I stumble towards her. “I wanted to tell you, but I was so
ashamed.”
I go to take her hand, but she flinches and pulls it away.
This is what I’ve been so afraid of. Ava was right. I was the perfect daughter. The one who
never
made any mistakes.
The one that thought things through before, except for that one time. Now their image of
me is
tarnished. Now they know that I am just like them. Human. The Ace card I had over Ava
was gone. 2
I was in the same boat as Ava. I made mistakes that are now hunting me. Sleeping with
Calvin
remains the greatest mistak
y life.
“H–How did this happen? When did it happen…did dad now?” Travis asks as he paces,
frustration
clear in his steps.
“Dad didn’t know. No one except Calvin and Molly knew.” I look at the ground, unable to
face the
look on my mom’s face.
“Start from the beginning and don’t leave a single thing out. I want to know why the hell
you’ve
kept my grandson a secret from his family,” Mom growls, her eyes turning fierce.
I didn’t want to rehash the past, but at this point, I don’t think I had any choice. If I didn’t
want
them to be even madder than they were right now, then I had to spill it.
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“When Rowan married Ava, I was broken I tried not to let it show. Tried to make you, dad,
and
Travis believe I was okay because you were all so worried about me. I felt like I was
drowning,
Mom. Like my world had exploded, and I’d been left with nothing. When I went back to
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtschool, I
didn’t tell any of you, but I fell into depression.
I sit down on the grass, feeling as small as I did back then when I learned that Rowan had
slept
with Ava.
“I was fading away. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, and I didn’t attend classes. In fact, I rarely
left my
room. Molly noticed this. She started pushing, and when I refused to get better, she
threatened to
call you guys to let you know. I didn’t want you to know how I was struggling. I didn’t want
Ava to
find out how tough things were for me.”
I was lost in memory. I had so much bitterness and resentment towards Ava back then. I
thought
if she ever found out how far I’d fallen, she would have been ecstatic. It was probably a
year and a
half later that I discovered she had been going through her own kind of hell.
“Things were going well after that. Molly became my anchor. My grades were improving,
and I
didn’t constantly cry or think about Rowan every second.” I take a deep breath “It was by
coincidence that I met Calvin again. It turns out we went to the same Uni and he was also
Molly’s
assignment partner.” 2
“I didn’t really talk to him. After all, we weren’t friends. I tolerated him because he was
Molly’s
friend, and when he didn’t show any remnants of the obsession he had for me in high
school, I
stopped being weary of him. We co–existed. He stayed out of my way and I stayed out of
his.”
Fuck. This was hard. I wanted to stop, but now more than ever, I knew they wouldn’t let
me.
“Like I said, things were going well for some time. They weren’t perfect, but they were
bearable.
That is, until the night m alled me to let me know that Ava had given birth to a baby boy
and
that Rowan fell in love with his son at first sight. Everything around me crumbled, and all
the pain
I’d been hiding came to the surface.” I try to breathe through the pain of the memories,
but it was
so fucking hard.
“I was in pain, and I was really angry. Angry at myself for turning down Rowan’s proposal,
angry at
Rowan for getting drunk and sleeping with Ava, angry at Ava for getting pregnant and
marrying
the man I loved and angry at the baby for being born.”
I hear a sharp intake of air. I don’t need to turn to know that it is from Rowan. I still
struggle with
being around Noah because if everything had gone the way I wanted it to, then he would
have
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“I wanted to punish Rowan To hurt him like he hurt me I knew he always disliked Calvin for
the way he crushed on me, so that night I approached Calvin and seduced him I knew
word would probably get back to Rowan, and that would have hurt him. That’s why I slept
with Calvin that night, because I counted on Rowan’s friend telling him. He would have
been so hurt, I would have gotten my revenge, and maybe then it would no longer hurt as
much.”
I don’t tell them, but it’s also how I lost my virginity. I was saving it for Rowan and in the
end I gave it to the guy who kept fighting for me to love him.
“I regretted it the next morning. It had been foolish of me to sleep with a guy I didn’t even
like just to get back at the man I loved. I told Calvin that it was a mistake and that he
should forget about what happened between us. I snuck out of his room, and I thought
that was that. That it was a terrible one–night stand and that would be the end of it.”
Fuck had I been wrong. I hadn’t planned for what was to come next. What destiny had
planned for
1. us.
“We went back to ignoring each other like the other didn’t exist, that is, until my period
was late. A cheap test. and later, a doctor’s appointment confirmed that I was pregnant.”
It had been the worst news I’ve ever received. Deep in my heart, I believed that one day
Rowan and I would get back together. I didn’t want an unwanted baby to hinder that. I
didn’t want the
consequences of my mistake to always be in my face.
“Why didn’t you get an emergency pill the morning after?” mom asks, making me blush a
little.
“Apart from being a complete mess, everything was new to me. To put it plainly, I was
naive. It
was the–the first time I’ve ever h–had s–S** so I didn’t really know that I should have. It
was one
time, so I assumed tha‘ n’t really enough to get me pregnant. Looking back, maybe if I’d
told
Molly, she would have aused me to get one, but like I said, I was so ashamed, I didn’t want
anyone to know.”
“You want to tell me that during all the years you dated Rowan, you never slept together?
You
were still a virgin?” Travis asks in disbelief.
I knew Rowan wasn’t. Before we started dating, which was at seventeen, he’d previously
been
sleeping with anything that walked and had a vagina. When I’d told him I wasn’t ready, he
understood. We planned to wait till I was ready. My biggest regret was holding out on him.
3/5
Rowan releases a groan uncomfortably “Can we not talk about this? It was years ago
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“To answer your question, yes I was still a virgin. Anyway,” 1 paused. “I told Calvin about
the
baby. I didn’t want the child and I wanted to get rid of it, but he wouldn’t let me
“You wanted an abortion?” Mom asks, her voice ringing with horror and disappointment.
I couldn’t do anything, but nod my head. “Calvin threatened to tell you and dad if I went
ahead
with my plans. I didn’t want you to know about my mistake, so I agreed to carry the baby
to term
and he would keep his mouth shut. It was the worst period because I was forced to carry a
baby I
didn’t want but had no other choice.”
“That was during the time you completely stayed away.” Travis whispers. “You wouldn’t
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmeven
allow us to come visit you.”
I’d made excuses during that time.
When I got bigger, Calvin took me to a house his grandfather owned, which he left to him
when he
died. I didn’t want word to get back to Rowan. That’s where I stayed until I gave birth.
“I convinced the school to let me take online classes, and since I was actually doing well,
there
wasn’t a need to call you or anything. I stayed with Calvin off campus until I gave birth.”
I see Mom’s eyes fill. I know that it hurts her that she wasn’t there when her grandson was
born,
but it was my decision and I had decided I didn’t want the baby.
“When I gave birth, I told the nurses to give the baby to Calvin. I didn’t want anything to
do with
him. To me, my job was done and now I could be free from the shackles Calvin tied around
me
when he forced me to keep the baby”
“You didn’t even look at y
wn child?” Mom asks.
hild?”
“No. I didn’t want to. To me he was the symbol of my worst mistake. I didn’t want to see
him, hold
him or be in his life” 1
I know it makes me look like an absolute bitch, but I honestly don’t care. It was my
decision, and
it’s what I wanted. 1
I left the hospital the morning after. Calvin worked two jobs just so he could afford the bill
for the
hospital. I didn’t care about how the baby was. How he was doing, what he was eating,
and so on.
All I wanted to do was forget that I’d had another man’s baby.
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“And you continued living your life like he didn’t exist, right? Like he was nothing at all?”
Mom asks, standing up.
“Mom…”
“Just shut up!” she yells before repeating softly. “Just shut up. Today, you’ve managed to
destroy the remaining piece of my heart. As if losing your father and Ava wasn’t
punishment enough, now I find out what a cruel daughter I really have…I can’t even look
at you right now; I just can’t.”
With that, she walks away. Leaving me sobbing on the floor.
I look at the rest, and one by one, they walk away too. Travis is the last to leave.
He shakes his head in what I think is disgust.
“Of all the people, I never expected this from you, Emma. Not you,” he says, and then he
too walks away.
I stay on the ground, crying. Everything had been perfect before she walked here and
ruined everything. This was Ava’s fucking fault. Her and her big mouth. I will never forgive
her for this.
Never.
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