“We’ll talk about it later, Rory. It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me, Stella.”
“Aurora—”
“Just tell me.”
Stella sighs. “Joey told them you were pregnant, and on the off chance that you and the baby would survive, they wanted assurances that you wouldn’t come after them.”
I want to cradle my belly, protect my baby just from the mere mention of those people.
“What did they do?”
“They made a deal with Seth. And I didn’t stop him. Maybe I should’ve and you can hate me, but I thought this was for the best.”
“What deal?”
“Your insurance won’t cover everything, so they did. And in return, Seth, on your behalf, signed a paper that Joey is not the father and has no obligations before you or the child.”
After everything…after everything he’s said and done, the knowledge that he doesn’t want anything to do with his child shouldn’t hurt.
But it does.
How could I be so blind and not see the evil inside his rotten heart all this time? I was naive. A dreamer.
But not anymore.
Not after everything.
Joey Kloss has died, along with my old heart that night.
I swallow the bitter sting of my disappointing choices in life and turn my gaze back to Stella. “That’s all? There was no one else?”
She tilts her head, studying me. “That’s it.”
I nod absentmindedly, accepting that fact, but…but where did the warmth come from?
5
Everything has a price
Severin
Presenttime
I draw my first morning breath exactly fifteen seconds before the alarm is set to go off.
I’ve stopped gasping, sweating, or having one of those racing heart moment as there was when one experienced a nightmare a long time ago. Because you stop gasping and sweating, and nothing else can surprise your heart in a mere dream—no matter how real it was—when your reality is much more colorful than anything your imagination can come up with. Even though my dreams are not your typical nightmares.
No, it wouldn’t be that easy for me to just see some made up shit that’ll never happen. My nightmares are full of the past.
Every lovely, fucked-up second of it.
The only problem, sleep is elusive to me on the best of days. It was never about rest and refueling for me. Quite frankly, I’m not even sure how that even feels, but I can manage some shut-eye. Enough to function. That is, if I don’t get nightmares. I haven’t experienced one in years now, and having seen those images infront of my eyes once again is putting me on the edge I’d like to stay off.
True to my counting, my phone goes off and I shut the alarm off, swinging my legs off the bed and taking my slate silk sheets down with me. My best—and only—friend Exton never misses his chance to tease me about them, quoting how I couldn’t show my silver spoon upbringing any more than I am with those. The fucker might be right, but hell if I’ll ever tell him that.
It’s not like I asked for it.
