Shallow River

“Mom,” Mako admonishes. “Don’t make it weird.”

Way over the top, Julie.

She waves her hand, nonplussed by her words. Bringing up Ryan is still… touchy. Julie is still grieving and sometimes even saying his name will have her bursting into tears. Every time I witness her pain, guilt lodges deep inside of me.

I’m not a sociopath. She’s living with a hole in her chest every day because I murdered her son. Did he deserve it? Absolutely. But Julie? She didn’t deserve anything that came her way. I wish there were a way I could take away her pain without taking back my actions, but we’re living far from a perfect world.

“It’s okay,” I say lightly. “I think he would’ve been happy, too.”

Mako squeezes my hand in response. Ryan would’ve been livid. But the good thing about that is Ryan’s dead.

TWO YEARS LATER

“OH, FUCK.”

“What?”

“Ohhhh, fuck,” I groan. My husband bursts into the bathroom, nothing but basketball shorts on, nearly toppling over me in his pursuit to save me from… I don’t know what he thought he needed to save me from.

He stops short, inspects my perfectly intact body and then looks back at me again with confusion. I inspect his body in return, momentarily distracted from his crisis when I get a good look at his six pack abs and tattoos covering both arms.

I’ll never get used to how delicious he is.

“What?” he asks again, drawing me back to reality.

“This!” I exclaim, shoving the stick in his hands.

He looks down at it with a mixture of shock, awe and horror. Somehow, all three of those emotions are equally prominent on his beautiful face. I’m still feeling those same emotions myself.

Pregnant.

Only a few years ago, I had looked down at a pregnancy test and felt like my life was possibly ending. I was in an abusive relationship with an evil man who was trying to trap me. He drugged me with antibiotics so my birth control would deactivate, just so I could never leave him. Luckily, the test came back negative.

Now, my husband looks up at me with just one emotion. Love.

We weren’t planning on having a baby for another couple years. Children was something we openly discussed and agreed on, but neither of us have been quite ready to take that next step. We’ve been enjoying our time together a bit too much and have been content staying selfish for the meantime and just being together.

Plus, Beckham has kept both of us teetering away from that edge, too. Amelia and David’s kid is quite a handful. He stays with Mako and I twice a month, and by the time Amelia comes to pick him up, we have a handful of new gray hairs sprouting and dark circles under our eyes. And every single time, Amelia drives away cackling.

After everything came out about Ryan, and I admitted to Amelia that Alison is not an evil, sabotaging bitch like I led her to believe, Alison found herself thrown into our little family. She’s considered Auntie Ali to Beckham and probably just as traumatized as Mako and I are after she babysits him.

And now, Ma

ko and I no longer have an option to be selfish.

Because we’re having a fucking baby.

“How do you feel?” he whispers, his hands sliding around my waist and pulling me close. I look down at where our chests meet. In about eight months, a big round belly is going to prevent us from getting this close. Because there’s going to be a full-grown baby between us.

“I’m scared. Terrified actually.”

He nods his head, the same sentiment written on his face.

“I’m scared, too. This is sooner than we expected, but I’m ready for it.”

I stare into his eyes, trying to find any hint of a lie. Some indication that he’s dreading the idea of having a kid with me. But all I can find is devotion.

My chest fills with warmth. “As long as you’re by my side, I’m ready too.”