Dare To Love Again

“This has nothing to do with you. What happens between Calen, our son, and I is our business and none of yours.” I’m highly offended at what she called my baby. She should keep her insults aimed at me but not my son. “Everything to do with Calen is my business. I lost to you once, but that won’t happen again, so don’t even think about worming your way back into his life again, or this time I’ll destroy you.”

“What? What do you mean this time? What did you do?” I wanted to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off her face, but my limbs had gone weak, and my son was beginning to get antsy at the raised tones in our voices.

“Let’s just say that I know exactly how to get rid of you and that thing in your arms. Calen might be excited at the prospect of having a child, but I can give him children in the future once you’re gone. Any children between us, with our pedigree, will be ten times better than your spawn. You don’t belong here, neither of you do and once the novelty wears off I’ll make sure that Calen sees that.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll see to it that you get a hefty sum for child support if you agree to go away and never come back here again. But if you refuse to leave, I’ll see to it that you get nothing, that you and your brat are put out on the street like the unwanted trash that you are. I won’t share my family with you.”

I was lost for words in the face of all that hate and spite. Her words left me feeling like I was being pummeled from all sides by very strong insistent waves and I couldn’t find my bearings. I couldn’t believe that Calen could’ve changed so much. The man I knew would never have taken me to his bed if his interest laid elsewhere. But he’s been so mad at me, maybe this was all part of his revenge, to use me and toss me aside like the trash she’d just called me.

No, Calen might hate me, but he’d never do that to his son no matter how many other children he goes on to have with her on anyone, I’m sure of that. I started to formulate a comeback, to remind her that if Calen had truly planned on marrying her that he could’ve done so at any time during the last two years that I’ve been gone but just as I opened my mouth to speak Calen walked into the room and asked me to leave.

Now I’m a nervous wreck as I pace the nursery, which is where I’d retreated to once again. What did Dana mean by ‘this time?’ Did she have something to do with the monster finding me? But how? None of this makes sense. There is no way for Dana to have known anything about my past; not even Calen knew the whole story.

I’d never told him about my mother, hadn’t mentioned my past to anyone in years, not since I left the boarding school in Switzerland, changed my name, and came back to the states to finish my education. I’d gone to great lengths to escape my mother’s clutches; it had taken years of planning and plotting to pull it off, and up until the moment I slipped away from my watchers and got onto the plane, I’d lived in fear.

No one knew that I’d applied and changed my name legally online and had procured all the necessary documents. I’d had a time of it getting a new birth certificate which I needed first to prove who I was, along with my social security card both of which I’d never even seen since my mother had all of that in her possession. Still, once I turned eighteen a few months before school ended and had all the information needed to fill out the forms, things became much easier than I thought.

Once I had my new identity in my hands, I felt a great sense of relief. I’d applied and been accepted to a university in the US, and with proof of my name change, the transition had been easy. The monster had helped me out somewhat in being able to afford the move. Not wanting others to see her for what she is, she has been generous over the years, always making sure I had spending money like the other girls in the convent turned boarding school she’d shipped me off to.

Though it was never as much as the others and nowhere near what my father’s estate could afford, it was enough for me to squirrel some away once I became old enough to understand what I needed to do. So, from the age of fourteen to eighteen, I’d been saving at least five hundred dollars a month, which was almost all the money she allowed me for my allowance.