Her Perfect Gift

“I’m shattered, just about ready to crash. Can I get a rain check on that one?”

“Of course.” He swoops over to me and kisses me on the mouth. “I will miss you, but I will be quick.”

He heads towards the shower and I take my weary ass body to bed, struggling as every step feels far too heavy for my liking. Luckily, I already have my pajamas on so I don’t need to worry too much about changing, I can simply crash on the sheets. All the while, allowing my mind to dart back and forth erratically in the most unhelpful way possible. All the worst possible outcomes enter my brain and make me feel even worse.

What am I doing here? I wonder sadly. Why is this nothing like I want it to be?

It hurts. Failure of this magnitude is painful. My makeup line didn’t do well back home but that was because there wasn’t the audience. I was safe in the knowledge that it wasn’t totally my fault. Here, I have all the tools and consumers to make me successful, but I can’t muster up the right attitude. It doesn’t seem to suit me here, that’s all. I can’t have it both ways, but that’s I want. I didn’t have any romance back home, because no one was Seth. No man could live up to the fantasy relationship that I created in my mind about the man that I had and lost six years ago… weirdly, now that I have Seth, I don’t even think that the fantasy is the issue because the real him is so much better. It just isn’t right… LA isn’t right, but it’s where he absolutely has to be. There isn’t any way around it. I either accept it all… or none of it.

Is this where I want to have a baby though? This isn’t even about just me anymore. I have another life to worry about and I don’t know if I would like to have a child here. Sure, there is the sun, but that’s about it for me…

This is way too hard. I curl around myself and cling on to my belly. It shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn’t…

The fairy tales never tell it like this, do they? They don’t explain how hard it will be after the ‘happy ever after’ part. I suppose because that wrecks the fantasy, doesn’t it? It isn’t a nice story then. But perhaps if they did discuss that part I would know what to do about it, wouldn’t I? I would have a frame of reference to make things work even when they aren’t as perfect as they are supposed to be. I shouldn’t even be thinking about leaving Seth behind. I finally have him and I love him so much, why am I so damn scared of staying?

As soon as I hear Seth coming out of the shower, my eyes snap shut. It seems like I am lying tonight, pretending that I’m asleep because I don’t know how to deal with him. Who have I become?

“Darcy?” he whispers to me as his body weight falls on the bed beside me. “Are you still awake?”

I keep my breathing steady, so he doesn’t suspect a thing, and soon I feel his eyes falling off me. He is buying it that I am asleep which is perfect. It means I don’t need to deal with anything more awkward. Since he has been drinking, I’m sure that Seth will crash out soon anyway, leaving me alone with my thoughts. My terrifying thoughts that aren’t doing anything at all to make me feel better…

“Darcy McNeill,” Seth surprises me by practically whispering. I can already tell that whatever he is about to say is more for himself than me because he thinks that I can’t hear it, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me. “Darcy, the girl next door, the woman that I have wanted for as long as I can remember… and now I have you. In my bed, in my life, loving me just as much as I love you. It’s just perfect… isn’t it?”

Everything inside of me stiffens up, I ball my fists tightly to try and keep my emotions inside. This is agony, hearing him say all of these nice things to me while I’m a mess hurts. I’m going to have to keep acting like I’m asleep, because if I dare open my mouth then there is no telling what will come out.

“But, Darcy…” It seems like he isn’t done yet. “I don’t make you happy, do I? You pretend for my sake, but I know the truth. It doesn’t matter how much we love one another, being here isn’t making your life as complete as it should be. I would do anything, anything, I could if I knew that it would change things, but I don’t know what to do. I want to ask you, but I’m scared of pushing you further away from me. I always feel like you might be on the verge of leaving.” He huffs loudly, breaking my heart in to a million pieces as he does. “I thought that it was going to be perfect here, you and me at last, but I don’t think it’s what we thought. Plus, Winter kept saying tonight that she doesn’t think I am happy either. I think I am, but what if she’s right?”

Fucking hell, does it have to be her name again? Really? Do I have to listen to him going on about Winter’s opinion on me and him? I don’t even know her. Why is she commenting… unless she wants him? God, if she does then I am fucked. Of course he’s going to choose her. Especially if me and him aren’t making one another happy. He’s slipping through my fingers like grains of sand and there isn’t anything that I can do to keep hold of him. However tightly I squeeze my fist, I’m losing my grip on him anyway, slowly losing everything.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Seth

January 21st

Ring, ring… Ring, ring… Ring, ring…

I don’t want to move. Not when everything inside of me hurts so badly that I could scream, but this is the third time that my cell phone has woken me up in the last twenty minutes, so I’m starting to think that this could be something urgent. While I’m not in the mood to deal with any kind of emergency, I guess that I don’t have any choice. So, with great effort, I roll out of the bed and stagger into the bathroom where I drunkenly left my clothes last night since I had the dumb idea of taking a shower in the middle of the night.

“Hello?” I grip on to my forehead as the pain gets worse. “Sierra? Is that you?”

“What the fuck took you so long?” she yells, clearly annoyed and with no consideration for my headache. “Fucking hell, Seth, what is wrong with you? This is bad, really bad. Especially for you.”

Oh God, I don’t like the sound of that at all. It makes me want to puke. “What are you talking about?”

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“I guess you haven’t been on the Internet at all today then? You haven’t seen the pictures of you and Winter?”

“Winter?” What the hell is she talking about? I kinda feel like there is something here, but I’m not sure what. I need to rack my brain hard to figure it out, but I don’t have the strength. “What pictures?”

“Winter dressed in your clothing, hugging you, clearly flirting with you, kissing you…”

“What?” Now I snap into more of a sober state. “Kissing? Flirting? What the fuck are you talking about? Me and Winter are just friends. There isn’t anything else going on between us. You know that.”

“So, you weren’t alone with her last night? Drunk and kissing outside a bar? Because I have evidence…”

Oh shit. An iciness trickles down my spine as I realize the truth. All of a sudden, the world feels cold and nasty. Not a place that I want to be in. I wish that I could go back to sleep so none of this would happen.