by Serena Rose
Was the beast in him that heartless? Or was it a dream he had to be thankful for? He hadn’t hurt her in any way, except maybe he had hurt her ego… he heard the shuffling of feet around the house, and he figured his father was now awake. It took a while, but his father was back in the house itself, no longer relegated to a life underground. It was a controlled process, with Will as the deciding factor. His father had once asked if he still continued seeing Kelsey, and when he said no, his father looked satisfied, adding something that Will didn’t expect.
“You’re no longer seeing her?” Tony nodded. “Then you truly do feel for her.”
What difference did the rest of those women make? He never saw them again… well, the difference was that he still thought of her, and even if he kept himself busy, he still was reminded of her. It didn’t help that she loved books as much as he did. Damn it, even a mere book. William stood up and decided to take a walk around the manor, something he hadn’t done in a while. He heard his father enter his own study, and he paused, looking at an old family portrait of a twenty-year old him, along with the servants that had long died. He hadn’t kept photos of his previous girlfriends, finding it useless. He still remembered every face, and the sound of their voices, and what ticked him off, and what made him end it. Why search for happiness when you’re only out there to break it off? A voice taunted in his head.
I didn’t want to break it off with Kelsey, but I have to protect her. I’ll be the last true-blooded male spawn in this family, and I hope to god Emilia doesn’t give birth to anyone like our kind, he thought, as if warring against his conscience. He fiddled with his phone for a moment, wondering if he should ask her how she was doing…
Ugh, that was the problem with modern times, it was so easy to reach out, and make things toxic once more. He fought against it, finally pocketing his phone. He decided to take a walk on their private beach instead. Cold weather had whipped up the coast, and he enjoyed the chill against his skin, going so far as just wearing a plain shirt, enjoying how his body bent to the cold, instead of repelling it with brute heat. Walking further and further away from their private beach, he found himself across a group of teenagers, with a fire going on in the middle of them. He watched as a guy enveloped his arms around his girlfriend, in some effort to try and keep her warm. He’d never done that. He began to think of Kelsey once more, and shaking his head, he found himself running back to his home at breakneck speed, grabbing his car keys, desperate to see her.
*
Kelsey had excused herself from work again, missing two classes for the day. The morning sickness just wasn’t letting down. Where had she heard it again? That people who had morning sickness weren’t really prepared to have children? Because it sure seemed like it. She was ill-prepared for a child, not knowing what to do with a baby at all. She contemplated calling her mother but decided to give it another couple of days. The thought of removing a child forcibly from her body sent shivers down her spine.
How was she going to do that, anyway? She couldn’t just go to some sleazy clinic, tucked away in some dirty alley to get it removed… she closed her eyes, feeling herself tremble. This was something she had never thought would happen. She didn’t get regular periods, and the worst part was, she was going to be all alone.
She sat by her small dining table, her mind churning solutions for her predicament. She did this to herself, and even if she wasn’t alone in the endeavor that had produced a child in her, the task of having a child was ultimately up to her.
Oh god, she thought, I can’t have this baby taken out, even if it means I’ll have to work thrice as hard…
Burying her hands in her face, Kelsey began to think of all the possibilities. They would strip her of her scholarship, would they not? She could give birth in Oregon, or she could run to China and be with her mother and give birth there. William needn’t know, she told herself again, William didn’t care.
She had only just stood up from her chair, when there came a knock on the door. “Who is it?” she asked blearily, not wanting to talk to her landlord, or her neighbors at the moment.
“It’s me,” a muffled voice came from the other side.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she stood in place, frozen. William, it was William. She’d know that voice anywhere. Kelsey took a deep breath, wondering if she should just ignore him, and then she realized he’d be waiting outside if she paid no attention to him, or he’d probably make a scene- which was worse.
She opened the door and saw him, dressed in a grey sweater, and black jeans and sneakers. She found that she couldn’t say anything at first. Hadn’t she just denied herself of him? She was pregnant, thinking that she was going to be alone- and now, he was here.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked her, looking at her intently.
It was a gaze that made her feel self-conscious. She took a step back, and William stepped inside her apartment, closing the door behind him quietly. Wordlessly, she led him to her small dining space, sitting across him.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“I had to see you,” he said, not looking at her for a moment.
“We’re through, remember?” she said, hating how the words rolled easily off of her tongue. She readied herself to be a single mother, readied herself to let William leave without knowing of his child.
“Do you want it to be over? Completely over?” he murmured.
Did she? She felt terribly alone at the moment, the fear of becoming a mother gripping her veins once more. She said nothing, afraid that her words were going to fail her thoughts and her feelings.
“Do you?” he repeated.
“Why are you doing this? Is this some kind of game to you?” she asked him. “Do you do this to everyone you date?”
“This is the first time I’m asking someone I used to date.”
“Two months was enough time to move on,” she said, her voice unsteady. She stood up, determined to see him out.
“Two months was enough time to realize I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He stood up as well.
“Don’t do this, Will.”
“I’m doing this because I believe it’s right.”
“It isn’t. Not after what you said to me. You think it’s easy to just waltz back into my life after saying those things to me?”
He shook his head. “I know it’s not, but I want you to know my intentions are-”
“Pure? Sincere? You don’t deserve a second chance, Will. You knew you would do that to me, and yet you still went right on with it. Is that why you felt guilty when you first slept with me? To make it seem like you were a good person?”
“It isn’t like that,” he began.
“Get out,” she breathed to him.
He looked stunned when he said that.
“You heard what I said, get out.”
“I’m not getting out until you answer my question. Do you want this completely over?”
“Wasn’t it over the moment you decided it was over?”
“I didn’t listen to your decision,” he told her.
“It’s over,” she intoned, hating how her voice trembled ever so slightly.
“I don’t believe you,” William told her after a long silence.
Kelsey shook her head and sat on the chair, burying her face in her hands. She heard the shuffling of feet, and the movement of her chair.
“You’re making things harder; reconciliation is-”
“Not easy,” Kelsey interrupted him. “And I don’t want a reconciliation anymore.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked her, his eyes narrowing.
“You have the audacity to ask me what’s wrong. Were you dropped on your head as a baby? I said I don’t want this anymore, I don’t want you here.”
“Something’s wrong,” he insisted.
“Oh, you think it’s about you? Were all the girls before me that crazy about you? Are you so deluded to think that it’s all about you?” sh
e snapped at him. “Get out, before I call the police. You’re the one who wants to keep things severely low-key, right? Get out.”
“No,” he said, his hand hesitating to hold onto hers. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, “Except you. You’re the wrong one to come into my life-” she stopped, as soon as she felt his hand on hers. From across the table, he saw his eyes widen. Hs mouth was half-open, and she heard him gasp.
“No,” he suddenly said, recoiling from her.
What? What was going on now? Was he freaking out because of her threats? She didn’t mean everything, except for the fact that she wanted him out because she had no idea how to reconcile the fact that she was pregnant with his child-
“You didn’t tell me,” he uttered. “You’re- you have something inside you-”
“You mean a child,” she corrected him, sounding hurt. Then, she bit her lip, realizing she had admitted the one thing she had been wanting to keep for herself. And how in the hell did he know? She nearly forgot to breathe.
“Oh god,” he exhaled. “You’re pregnant.”
She was looking at his face, distraught, upset, and angry. And then, she felt all the same things he felt all of a sudden. “Before you accuse me of sleeping around to get over you after we broke up-”
“I know you wouldn’t,” he said. And she saw him slump on the chair, his head facing the ceiling, his eyes closed. He took a deep breath, and then he looked at her once more. “You’re pregnant, damn it, you’re pregnant. How many-?”
“Nearly two months, I think.”
“The time we broke up… you were pregnant by then,” he realized.
She said nothing, hating the fact that she admitted so easily that she was pregnant with his child. It looked like he wouldn’t even want the idea that she got pregnant by him. “How did you know?” she suddenly asked, knowing she hadn’t told him, and yet he knew. “I haven’t told anyone, not even my mother.”
“I…” he paused. “It’s part of what I couldn’t tell you.”
“And you still won’t tell me?”
“Oh no, you’re- how could this happen?”
She closed her eyes. “We weren’t safe enough. But I’ll be fine, I can manage-”
“Manage? How in the hell do you think you can manage? What about your studies? Your life? Your plans?”
“They won’t interfere with yours, I assure you that,” she told him. “You’re a free man, as far as we both know.”
“I’m not,” he told her, “I’m never free. In fact, I never will be.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He had felt a different kind of warmth the moment he held her hand, and he heard the tiniest heartbeat the moment he had done so. It wasn’t possible, he had thought at first, and then he felt that unmistakable increase in her body temperature and heard that tiny heartbeat in her belly.
William had come, hoping for a reconciliation, except, now, he had found himself a father to an unborn child. Two months, two months of her being alone, two months of her struggling to come to terms that she was going to be a mother- he wouldn’t have that. He wouldn’t risk it. The earlier it ended, the better it would be for the both of them.
“I don’t want that to end up like me,” he said to her. The child, if it was going to turn out to be male at all, was going to end up killing the mother, and he couldn’t imagine that happening, in fact, he didn’t want that to happen. Kelsey had to get out of this alive.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her voice unsteady.
“I want it out of you.”
“Like it’s a thing?” she sounded strained.
“It’s something that shouldn’t even be in you,” he said to her. “We can take it out, as early as now, I’ll pay for everything, accommodations, the hospitalization, you won’t miss out on school- whatever it takes, and we get that out, we have to get that thing out of you.”
Kelsey looked horrified, and she shook her head over and over again. “This is mine. I don’t care if you don’t want it. I’ve decided early on, it’s mine, I’m keeping the baby.”
“You don’t understand,” he said, trying to reason with her. What reason was there without proof of what he was? He couldn’t expose himself to her, not here, not now.
“I don’t understand? So, I’m the one who doesn’t understand now? You’re a monster, you know that?”
You have no idea what monster means, and you have no idea of the monster that could be growing inside you. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
“I’m dealing with you, and I should be done dealing with you. I don’t care if you think this baby’s a monster, I’m keeping it. This kid is mine, and you can relinquish all rights to being the child’s father, for all I care.”
That hurt, he thought. She had thought this through without his input, and frankly, it unnerved him. This was her resiliency showing, and it was a resiliency that could kill her. He didn’t want her dead, by god, he’d do anything to keep her alive, even if it meant facing hell itself-
He was deeply in love with her, he realized. And his father had been right all along. So, he did care, so he did love beyond the allotted familial love. And it was something he didn’t want to face, but had to, now that she was carrying his child….
She took a deep breath. “You know what? Screw this. I’m going out of here, and I don’t want to see you when I get back. We both don’t want trouble, so I’m giving you time to get over your narcissism-”
“No, Kelsey, you don’t understand-”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m keeping this baby, whatever I have to do, it’s mine,” she said, grabbing her coat, and her phone. He watched for a moment as she exited her own apartment, leaving him in silence. William found himself sitting down. He had to take that thing out of her. What if it turned out to be a girl? What were the odds that it would be a girl? And she could live, and never have another child again, so he could keep her alive?
He’d see to it that- no, whatever the chances were, he had to take it out as early as now. Two months. That meant he’d gotten her pregnant a mere month into dating, and they both had no idea. The idiocy of it all. He was an idiot, he said, staring at the small apartment she lived in, with no complaint whatsoever. She had kept that to herself, without telling anyone, without calling him for child support, without demanding for money at all. Kelsey Long was that kind of person. It was why he got attracted to her…
William stood up, grasping he had spent more than thirty minutes, just sitting there, thinking about his welfare, when he should be thinking about hers. He bolted right out of his stupor, rushing for his car. He could no longer hear her, could no longer pick up her scent. Where did she go?
“Damn it, damn it,” he muttered, cruising the streets, actively searching for her. Was she at work? He found himself driving for Huntley and Thwaite College. It had been months since he had last set foot in the institution, shying away from people once more, and steering clear of Kelsey, until now.
She should be at work, right? Where else could she be? Half-running for the shop, he walked in, finding it devoid of people, except for Sally at the counter. Her identification tag hung on her collar, and her happy picture was a contrast to her not-so-welcoming face.
“How may I help you?” Sally asked him, her eyes narrowed.
He found himself self-conscious, disliking the fact that he was talking to someone he didn’t know much of. Kelsey had mentioned she was the store manager, and that was it. “I’m looking for Miss Kelsey Long,” he said calmly.
Sally’s brow cocked up. “Kelsey isn’t here today. She mentioned she wasn’t feeling well.”
“Do you know where she is?” he pressed on, hoping she wouldn’t say she was probably at home.
“Have you checked her place? Seems like you know her well enough to know where she lives,” Sally retorted.
“I have. No one’s answering.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t he
lp you,” Sally said, biting her lower lip for a moment.
“Any idea at all?”
“Do you have any idea what she’s going through right now?” Sally continued, clearly annoyed by his persistence. “Any idea at all?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he replied with a poker face.
Sally shook her head and huffed. “I had hoped someone would take care of her. She deserves it. Excuse me.”
Sally turned her back against him, grabbing a logbook for the inventory, leaving William standing there for a moment, and his mind churned, trying to figure out just where she could be. Her phone couldn’t be reached. He had seen her grab her phone earlier. Did she block him? The nerve if she did… wait, she had every right to block him, right? He had been a grade-A jerk to her.
He felt a bit of panic surge in him, wanting to know where she was immediately. She’d come back to her house, right? She just wanted him out of there. For all he knew she could be there already. He drove back to her place, but he didn’t see her at all, he didn’t sense her.
William found himself in a state of restlessness and mild anxiety, something he rarely felt. Where was she? He drove about the town, hoping to spot her, hoping to sense her at the very least. He stopped his car momentarily in front of a bus stop. A mild scent lingered, a scent that belonged to her. She took a bus. Going where? He read the routes. They all headed for the seaside towns, close to his place, at least close enough. A walk on the beach to clear her head? Humans were indeed predictable.
There were three towns close to his family manor, and he would scour the beach for her then. He decided to park his car back at his place and walk the entire stretch of beach afforded to everyone. It would take a while, but it was worth a shot. She was alone and would probably feel cold. That jacket didn’t seem like it was enough to keep her warm…
