I thinkI managed to work a little magic on Mr. Stratton. He hasn’t necessarily eased up on my restrictions, but he’s not looking at me with as much suspicion in his eyes. I’m still not sure how I managed to calm him down the other night, but since then, his shoulders haven’t been as tight and his eyes aren’t as crinkled. His anxiety is lessening, but mine’s grown by leaps and bounds. My monthly is missing in action, and I fear he’s going to realize that at some point since he’s the one that does all the shopping and I haven’t asked for supplies.
Placing my hand over the lower half of my abdomen, I do something I haven’t done since I was a little girl—I pray. Rubbing my belly, I say, “If there is a little one in here, please help me keep him or her safe until I can find a way to get myself out of this mess.”
Tears begin to leak from my eyes and it gets harder to swallow past the lump in my throat. I have a realistic fear that ifhe discovers I’m expecting, he’ll lose his ever-loving mind and cause me irreparable damage.
Before this entire ordeal, I wasn’t thinking positively in regard to becoming a mother, but now, I’ll fight with every ounce of strength I possess in my body to keep this pregnancy intact.
Right now, the thought of carrying LoneStar’s child is what’s keeping me motivated to survive and outwit the professor.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize to my potential unborn child. “You’ll have to be patient with me, kiddo. I’m not sure how good I’ll be at this mother thing, but we’ll have your daddy to help us navigate it. He’ll keep us on the straight and narrow.”
“Who are you talking to?” Mr. Stratton asks, scaring the shit out of me because I didn’t hear the door open or him enter the room.
I withdraw my hand as stealthily as I can to not gain his attention on what I was doing. Thinking on my feet, thankful for what I do for a living and using my panster mind to come up with a valid excuse, I say, “The new character developing in my head.”
“What about Mara and Clint?” he asks, you can hear the disappointment laced in his tone that they’re not my priority.
“Their love story is ruminating in my mind,” I fib, looking up at him with innocent eyes. “Their reunion needs to be epic, heartfelt, and earth-shattering, don’t you think, professor? I don’t want to just throw words down on paper and expect the ground to quake beneath their feet.”
“No,” he shakes his head in the negative. “They need to reconnect with a boom! They need to look into each others’ eyes and realize they made the worst mistake of their lives when they broke up.”
My eyes widen as big as my sockets allow. Break up? They weren’t together in the first place but I’m scared to burst his bubble.
I clear my throat and tell him another lie, “They broke up because he not only cheated on her by faking a relationship with her friend, he also lied about who he was and kidnapped her and tried to take her life,” I remark, reminding him about how the story played out.
Two questions float through my mind, ones that seem significant.
One,has he forgotten or has he rewritten the script in his head to suit his needs?
Two,should I have him do a reread for the reminder or will that cause him to have a meltdown?
“How do I rectify that and make it believable, Professor?”
“He was desperate,” he defends.
“That may be the case, but it doesn’t scream hearts and flowers, Mr. Stratton. I need a plot line that’ll cause her to find forgiveness in her soul because Clint shattered Mara’s.”
“He shattered her soul?” he asks, looking appalled as if he had no idea what his hero did to his heroine.
“He did,” I confirm. “It took her a long time to find faith within herself and in men in order to move on and find joy.”
“What can we do to have Clint redeem himself?” he asks, walking further into the room.
“That’s what I’m working on. But through the years, I’ve learned that if I boggle my mind with something like that, ideas don’t come to me and I end up with writer’s block.”
“That’s why you’re letting these new people take precedence in your head? So you can relax and not stress over giving them an epic reunion?” he quizzically asks.
“Exactly,” I say, bobbing my head.
“I have two hours before I need to leave for class. I’ll grab you the laptop and let you get started. The quicker you get these new characters out of your head the sooner you’ll give Clint his much deserved happily ever after,” he mumbles.
He leaves the door open which means I have permission to leave the room so I stand up and shuffle my way out to the main room and sit down at the kitchen table. I have a starburst of elation, thinking if I have access to a laptop, I’ll be able to connect to the internet and send out an S.O.S. I’ll have to be sneaky about it though, I don’t want him to catch on to my scheme.
When he sits the dinosaur of a laptop in front of me, my entire body sinks further into my chair. “Thank you,” I whisper.
Why can’t the universe align for me? Just once. This computer is one of the first PCs that came onto the market. How it’s still working is an anomaly. It’s not updatable, and there’s no way on God’s green earth it’ll connect to the web.
“It’s old, but you’ll still be able to construct your story,” he tells me, patting my shoulder before heading into the kitchen.
