Toby must have let his disbelief show on his face because Edgar laughed. “Don’t worry, Toby, you don’t need to believe me. Now, do you want a rest, or should we head straight for the airport?”
16
“We’re blood,” their dad had said as his needle kissed Tabby’s skin for the first time. “It binds us to each other, and it can never be changed or broken.”
The broken part was probably genuine, but the blood had changed. Or maybe ‘grown’ was a better word. Because inside her womb, there was a half-Tabby, half-Toby hybrid. A new soul. A new creation. New blood.
She dug her tattooed toes deeper into the warm summer sand, touching the cooler stuff below. She’d taken a pregnancy test twice a day since That Day, and at this point, it was pretty undeniable that, yes, she was hosting Toby’s bastard offspring, created amidst whatever messed up sex game they’d been playing at the time.
“Sorry,” Tabby said, pressing her fingers on her lower belly. “What a way to show up, my dude.”
The only bright spot she had to hold onto was that she hadn’t been drinking or smoking weed since she and Toby stupidly started going bareback. She’d been taking the pill, but her insane sex schedule had thrown her timing out of whack, and her timing had never really been in whack.
As she watched ceaseless waves crashing into Rye Beach, she wondered how she could have been so reckless. But the answer was already rising, like the breakers in the ocean. Like not dyeing her ratty roots because she wanted her hair to be brown, she’d negated to take the pill at the same time every day because she’d wanted something to happen. Something to force her hand and change her life.
The thought chilled her to the bone, but alone on the beach with her future progeny feeding on her DaSilva blood, she forced herself to stay on subject. She hadn’t done anything as premeditated as actively trying to have Toby Tennant’s kid. She’d wanted him to finish inside her because it was hot, and if she weren’t pregnant, she wouldn’t be thinking aboutgettingpregnant. But for the last few years, shehadbeen thinking about kids.
She’d always wanted them, always fantasised in some dim little corner of her mind about smearing blood across her cheeks and giving birth like a champion to some interesting, cool little person. She’d always thought she had plenty of time, but watching Nix and Noah struggle through fertility treatments had opened her eyes to how difficult it could be to get pregnant. And shehadwondered if it might be easier if you were younger. And shehadthought maybe she should do what she always did and go for it. Let the fallout deal with itself once the pact was made.
But where the buck stopped was the thought of actually trying. Not just to find a steady partner who might also want to have kids, but to ever really consider it because…
“I am my mother’s daughter,” Tabby muttered. “Her blood is my blood, too.”
Even before Deborah had reappeared, she’d been the ghost at the feast. The reminder that, no, motherhood wasn’t some magical spell that made you worthy of the job. Whenever Tabby thought about having a baby, she’d thought about herself vanishing into the mist like Deborah. The threat of it had felt strapped to her like a time-delayed suicide vest.
You don’t have what it takes.
You can’t make this work.
You’ll fuck up, and then one day, you’ll be sitting in a café across from your daughter, and she’ll give you legal documents demanding you never talk to her again.
“Fuck,” Tabby whispered, wiping her ten-millionth tear from her cheek. “Fuuuuuuuck!”
She was still rubbing her lower belly, the way Nix had when she was carrying.
Nix. Poor fucking Nix. She’d gone bananas when she’d seen the test.
“You’re not supposed to be pregnant! I’m supposed to be pregnant!” she’d screamed in Tabby’s face, her skinny fists raised. “I’m supposed to be pregnant! It’s my turn! It’s my baby!”
“I’m sorry,” Tabby had said, howling tears as she tried to simultaneously hold Nix at bay and hug her at the same time. “I didn’t mean for this to happen!”
“You never mean for anything to happen because you’re an irresponsible bitch who doesn’t have a fucking clue what she’s doing! You don’t even have a boyfriend! It’s not fucking fair!”
Then Noah and Sam had burst in from their respective bedrooms and pulled Nix away. They got the gist of what was happening pretty fast, and a stony-faced Sam had ordered her to her room.
“It was an accident!” she’d wailed, but her older sister had already gone, down the hall and into Nix’s room to comfort her twin.
She was the disappointment. The shitty baby kid who’d been useless at the Deborah debacle and was now knocked up to boot. Unable to stay for one more moment, she’d packed her bags and climbed out of her bedroom window, hoping the effort wouldn’t hurt the baby.
Miscarriage was still a possibility. She had to be less than two months pregnant, and Nix had shown her that women miscarried all the time. But Tabby knew it wouldn’t happen. In her heart, her guts, in herblood,she knew that if she went through with this pregnancy, she’d have a daughter—a happy, dark-haired daughter with a jewel name like Emerald or Ruby. A DaSilva like her and her sisters.
She thought of Toby, and the tears started flowing again. More than anything, she wished he was with her, rubbing his big hand over her back and telling her that everything was okay.
But how was she supposed to tell him what she’d done? Unlike her, he was a good person. He’d step up and take responsibility. Probably ask her to marry him. But that was of less than zero comfort to her right now. The guy had only spent a couple of years playing the field and having fun, and now she was cooking his first kid in her oven.
Careless.
Selfish.
