Chapter 33 Bree
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Boston welcomed me the way it welcomed everyone.
With gray skies, loud and indifferent chaos that sped past without noticing or caring that I’d been gone for three months.
My apartment smelled like the lavender diffuser I’d left running on a time and the faint staleness of closed rooms. My stomach churned as I took it all in, all the bits and pieces of my life that sat exactly where I’d left them.
From the yellow throw blanket over the arm of the couch, to the novel laying open on the coffee table, and the view out the window that I’d once considered the best view in the world.
None of it mattered anymore.
I set my suitcases in the bedroom and stood in the middle of my living room with my hands on my hips and waited for the feeling hom coming home.
Nothing.
I gave it a week.
Still nothing.
I went back to the office, endured the exuberant welcome home party they threw in my honor, and worked on the stack of projects that Diane had run out of patience for and delegated to me.
Emails. Phone calls to vendors. It all came back.
Everything I needed…except that one simple feeling that I’d be okay.
Eight hours in an office chair was nothing to the constant ache in my heart.
A soft knock on the open door drew my head up where I’d been staring at the seating arrangement for the Harrington party.
Diane held up two coffee cups. “Brought your favorite.” She didn’t wait for me to answer but strolled over, handed me a cup, and sat across from me. “Close the laptop.”
I closed it.
She crossed her legs, jiggled her foot up and down a few times, and sipped her coffee, watching me over the rim. “Talk.”
“I’m fine.”
“Anyone who starts a conversation with ‘I’m fine’ is never fine.” The look in her eyes dared me to argue, but honestly, I didn’t have the energy. “You’re here in body. I need you to tell m what’s going to bring the rest of you back.”
I looked at my closed laptop and worked on an answer. “I left something in Clover Hill.”
“Mm-hm.” She tightened her grip on the cup. “Something. Or someone?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. She let me leave it hanging, which was its own answer. We drank our coffee and she told me about the Harrington venue issue that gave me something to focus on besides my brokenness.
By the time I made it home, I’d told myself a dozen times I made the right decision. I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror after washing off my makeup and said it out loud, just to hear the words.
The right decision didn’t stop hurting. I hadn’t expected it to, but I’d thought it might be manageable after a while, the way my grief dulled. Instead, it lived in my chest with a persistent ache.
I missed Declan making coffee as soon as he arrived, how he moved through the space with the ease of knowing he belonged there.
I missed Ronan’s almost-smile and the way he fixed things without a word. I missed the way he leaned into me in the middle of the night.
I missed Finn climbing the fire escape because he knew it would make me laugh.
I missed the pub. I’d built something there and left it and I had no idea if that made me brave or an idiot.
The third week after coming home, the fog cleared enough for me to realize I’d missed my period. By a lot.
I’d been tired since I came home, but I’d attributed it to the fact I’d spent three months running a pub combined with a broken heart.
But I’d never missed a period. Not once.
The flutter of my too-fast pulse combined with the sudden nausea and I dropped onto the edge of the tub until it passed. I stood. Sat again. I had to know.
Thirty minutes later, after a two-block walk to the pharmacy and back, I peed on all three tests in the box and sat down to wait.
How did time become so slow? Every second felt like an hour.
I stared at the tests, then decided I didn’t want to see it change and looked away, only to yank my head back again.
The instructions said not to look too early, as the results could be faulty.
I slid into the floor and pulled my knees up, burying my head in them to keep from peeking.
My phone dinged, and I leaped to my feet so fast I nearly fell into the toilet.
Two lines.
Pregnant.
It took a minute to sink in, and when it did, a half-sob, half-laugh broke loose. “Okay.” The sound of my voice struck me as funny all over again. Maybe I was having a nervous breakdown. Might need to call a doctor. Shit. I needed an OB.
I collapsed onto the side of the tub again, all three tests telling me the same thing. A baby. An actual baby, small and vulnerable and growing despite the complete disregard for the mess I’d made of my personal life.
Mom would have clapped and cheered. Nana Maeve would’ve poured me a drink, then drank it herself while saying pregnant women shouldn’t drink alcohol.
Get up, Bree. You have work to do.
I heard it in Mom’s voice, and it drove me to my feet.
I stood and cleaned up the bathroom. I didn’t call anyone.
Instead, I sat at the kitchen table, my search history in my laptop growing clogged with information on pregnancy, and drank a glass of water because water was healthy according to my first article I read.
Everything I read told me I still had options.
I didn’t need options. I wanted the baby. That honest truth lodged in my heart within ten minutes of the test. I’d always thought of children as a ‘someday’ sort of situation.
Someday had arrived. I wasn’t ready, but I for damned sure would be. Things did not make sense and had not lined up the way I thought my life would. Fine.
I’d make it work, even with all my practical problems staring me in the face.
How was I, a single woman living in a one-bedroom apartment in Boston, going to afford childcare, pregnancy, and everything else?
I could call them. They need to know.
My throat went so instantly dry I choked on the water, spewing it across the table as I hacked and gagged.
They had a right to know. One of them was the baby’s father, and the honest thing to do was call and tell them.
But then…they’d want me to come back to Clover Hill.
I was not going to put my child through what I’d endured in that place. I refused.
My breaths came short and fast, my heart racing to keep up. I pressed both palms on the table and forced my mind to think it through instead of letting my emotions do the work.
It was harder than I thought.
Even if I told them, even if all three of them showed up on my doorstep tomorrow ready to claim this baby and build a home around us, what did that look like in Clover Hill?
A child born to a woman and three men, out of wedlock and being unable to prove paternity without a test, would bring even more disapproval than what I’d experienced.
Nope. No thank you. Not doing that to my child. I could not–would not–put my baby in a position to feel the things I’d felt.
I no longer leaped and gasped, my heart in my throat every time my phone rang, hoping it was one of them. I’d told them it was over, and they respected that.
I’d done this. I’d walked into that town and fallen in love with three men who never stopped treating me with anything less than absolute love and adoration. I’d walked away from that for my own sanity. I didn’t get to call them back and hand them a consequence they might not want.
We hadn’t talked about kids. Hell, we hadn’t talked about a future at all beyond the next day, the next batch of gossip that tore at me.
I would raise this baby. I would do it here, in Boston, in a city large enough that the circumstances of a single woman’s pregnancy didn’t raise eyebrows. I’d find a bigger apartment, negotiate with Diane, who was pragmatic enough to make it work if I had a plan I could show her.
I splayed my hand over my stomach. “Hi.” My voice came out tinny and tight, fear and hope and love mingling together. “I’m your mama, and I’m going to figure this out.”
I sat there a while longer, my hand on my stomach as I read until my eyes blurred and I’d drank two glasses of water. Then I started a list of everything I needed to do before my delivery.