And I leave only knowing what I already knew.
I’m having a baby.
And I’m doing it on my own.
Chapter Twenty
8 months later
“We need you to push, Miss Hale,” The midwife tells me, “You’re ready.”
I shake my head, skin slickened by sweat, pain making me want to scream but instead I clamp my teeth together so hard it makes my jaw ache.
“Come on, Ness,” Immy croaks through her own pain but I don’t let up on the squeezing of her hand. Ruthie is on the other side of me, the kind old woman I’ve known since I was little and has been as much a motherly figure in my life as my own mom, strokes back my hair.
“Good girl,” She coos affectionally, “He’s almost here.”
“I don’t want to do this,” I cry.
“It’s a little late for that, sweetness,” Ruthie says, “Big push.”
My body takes over and I have no choice but to bear down.
“That’s it,” Someone says though I have no idea who, “Crowning.”
It feels as if I am being torn in half, the burn and ache of labor burning through whatever energy I have left. Tears leak from my eyes and exhaustion weighs heavily on my bones, I’m struggling to even keep my knees up and open.
“One more,” someone says, Ruthie I think, and I obey, bearing down as relief floods through me at the same time as a wail rents the air. The sound of my newborns first cry is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
“It’s a boy!” The midwife cheerily confirms. Everything moves so quickly in the next few minutes my brain has trouble keeping up but the one thing I can focus on is that cry. It hits some deep, primal part of me, and it swells, blooming to become this warm core of happiness that sits right in my chest.
And when he is placed in my arms, and I see his face, tiny fingers curled tight, I know I’ve done something I was always meant to do.
“Ethan,” I whisper, “Hi baby.”
Tears roll down my face as I move the bundle of blankets away from his cheeks so I can look at him better.
No one knows his dad, but I do and while I’ll name him with his father’s name, I’ll do so secretly. He is an Avery. Ethan Avery-Hale, and he is perfect.
Chapter Twenty-one
Present day…
There was something happening with the Avery’s. Maya, Torin’s new wife paces back and forth in the kitchen of her large waterside house, a fire crackling in the fireplace as she watches out the window.
I’d asked but she’d just stared at me and began her pacing once more.
It’s unusually quiet, there’s no Everett or Arryn, no laughter or warmth.
Coming back to the island had lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I had tried to keep up with my studies, but Ethan needed me more, so a few months ago, I stopped college, packed us up and brought us home. Imogen was relieved we were home and I’d gained some unexpected friends since returning too.
Maya, and her daughter Harper, came to the island for refuge, and she’d fallen in love with Kolten’s brother, Torin. From what I’d heard from Imogen, Torin had been a shell of a man in the years since passed, until Maya and Harper. I’d tried to warn her off him, though I don’t know why. Torin is a good man; he was good to Grace before she died, and he is good to Maya and Harper. He deserves the happiness he’s found with them.
I guess it was my own jilted past and heavy secrets moving my tongue, but I was glad she didn’t listen. The Avery’s are dangerous but to their women, they are not.
Even Everett, the youngest brother had fallen head over for Arryn, and I never thought that guy would ever settle. But Arryn and I have become close friends in the past few weeks.
Neither brother is Kolten, and I must move past it. I have their nephew and they don’t know, but whenever I try to come clean, my mouth stops working. It’s been two years since Ethan was born, and now I feel like it’s too late.
