Love, Lies, Secrets and Manipulation (Divergent/Eric OC)

65. A Mother's Love

(Natalie's POV)

The Next Morning

I'm awoken when I feel the mattress all of a sudden dip down behind me. Eric sighs heavily, his big arms wrapping around my torso like he's hugging onto a large pillow. He has taken a shower—I can smell the freshness, as opposed to the strong smell of alcohol he was drenched in last night. He smells good, clean. His body is nice and cool and his breath smells much better. I like when he holds onto me like this from behind.

He stayed up most of last night spending the majority of the time vomiting in the bathroom. I didn't get up to assist him—it was his choice to drink all of that whiskey yesterday, not mine. I had no sympathy for his own suffering. My sole intention was to continue sleeping. A happy mama equals a happy baby, I convinced myself.

"Did you take some aspirin?" I ask groggily, my eyes closed.

"Yeah," he mumbles, an exhausted sigh following afterward. "Last night. And again earlier. I think I might have to overdose on them."

"Well, don't go that far," I say with my eyes still closed, grazing the skin of his forearm. "Our kid is still gonna need her dad. I don't want to have to go and find her a new one." My last words are meant to tease him, and I chuckle.

"Over my dead body," he murmurs. I want to laugh.

"Well, let's hope it doesn't ever come to that."

There is a silence between us, and I think it's because we're both hoping that it doesn't ever have to come to that. He may have not yet expressed that he's excited, but I know that he won't ever want to miss out on enjoying a future with us. I know that I don't ever want to miss out on enjoying a future with my baby. I want to be able to be there for all of it. And I want Eric to be there, too. I need him to be there.

He slowly pulls away from me a bit, leaving me enough space to roll over on my back and look at him. His attention is on my body, though, and he pulls the sheet down lower to my hips, then slowly trails his fingers up my abdomen, lifting up the hem of my shirt to just below my breasts. My small, little baby bump is now exposed, but it looks more like a bloated, little pouch of fat. His fingers lightly skim over the skin, his eyes fixated on the bump.

"How far along are you?" he asks softly. We didn't get to that discussion yesterday. I felt that he was too drunk to have everything explained to him. He might have not even remembered if I told him.

"A little over thirteen weeks now," I reply. "Three months."

"Shouldn't you... be taking pills for that or something?"

"You mean prenatal vitamins?" I ask with a smile. It's obvious he knows nothing about pregnancies or babies. "Yeah. I have been taking them. Every morning after breakfast I go see Des in the infirmary. She has the pills there for me."

"After breakfast?" he questions with a crease between his brows. "What, you mean when you always say you're going to the bathroom?"

The answer to that question would be yes. A bathroom break is usually the only time I'm ever alone to myself, so that is the time that I use to sneak off to the infirmary to take my pill in the mornings. I figured it would be easier to do that instead of bringing the bottle of pills back home to the apartment and keep it hidden from Eric. He would have eventually found it, and I wasn't ready for him to know yet.

"Yes," I answer. "It's just easier to take it in the mornings."

He sighs, covering his face with his right hand and spreading his thumb across his forehead. "How the hell did I not notice all of this?"