26. Valeria
VALERIA
This is madness.
And it’s misery.
I stand in the ocean, letting the waves lap up against my belly and breasts, squinting against the brilliant blue stretching long into the horizon.
The sun casts a drowsy warmth over my face and shoulders, and the water is salty and tepid as bathwater.
I can still taste the ice cream we had after lunch.
I love him. And he loves me.
With Nico all the way on the shore, he won’t be able to notice the movement of my arm as I place my open palm on my lower belly.
I’ve been too scared to get a pregnancy test.
I never know when I’m being followed. And I’ve been stalling, because once I know for certain, I’ll have to make a decision. And I have to make it alone, because I already know what he’d want.
He’s spent the entire week watching me like he knows I’m carrying a secret inside me. He thinks I don’t notice, but I do. I’ve caught him taking pictures of me when he thinks I’m not looking, and even now, I can feel the weight of his gaze.
None of this bodes well. I’ve been chasing the thought to the recesses of my mind, unwilling to look at it in the sunlight, but here, alone in the ocean, I pull it out and examine it.
At first, I thought this trip was his way of thanking me for taking care of him after he got hurt, some kind of treat to remind me why I should stay with him. But little by little, I think I’ve figured it out.
He’s saying goodbye.
The pictures, the way he tells me that I’ll be his forever. The fact that we’re even having a honeymoon in the middle of all of the chaos we’re caught in. It’s like he’s trying to imprint himself on me before he lets me go.
With my back to him, I let tears stream down my cheeks.
That’s been new—the crying. I’m not even sure if it’s because I’m pregnant, or because he’s managed to worm himself into my chest and into my heart, and now I’m forever changed from the woman I was before.
If I tell him I’m carrying our baby, he’ll never let me go.
The other thought, the one about keeping the baby and how that’s impossible, I can’t even look at in complete isolation.
I’ve wanted this so badly for my entire life, and now I have a man who, for the first time, I could see myself growing old with, and I can’t have him.
I pressed my fingertips into my belly. I have to protect it, and that means making the best decision for it.
I had been taking birth control pills. Someone tampered with them.
The waves crash against me.
If it was Nico, I’m not angry, though I know I should be. He’d warned me, didn’t he? That this is what he’d do. It’s better this happened now, than a year down the line.
Nico and I both know that when we get back to Chicago, I have to leave.
And I can’t keep this baby, no matter how much I love its father.