As Hope and Promise Fade

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

With a respectable distance between them Marc and Ariana continued to talk. She had too many questions to let him just walk out that door with all the answers.

“I’m only a month along, how did all the symptoms come so quickly?” She asked, seated on the bed while he sat at her desk.

“Everything with us is hyperactive as it is hypersensitive.”

Ariana knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose but without fault everything he said still continued to carry that sensual undertone. The word hypersensitive reminded her of all the ways her body reacted when he touched her. “So I felt the pregnancy days within conceiving.” Stay with the facts.

“Yes, your due date will come quicker too. An average lycan pregnancy lasts a little more than six months.”

“Wow.” The scientific aspects of it all fascinated her. In five months she was going to become a parent. “My mother is going to kill me.” she thought back to one of the last talks they had before she left back to California and how adamant she said told her there was no way she could be having a baby.

“I know you don’t like it but its better for her safety and her happiness to keep her in the dark about all of us.”

“I know and I’ve agreed with it for the most part but what happens if my dad realizes you and Jax are related to the man she’s married to? I don’t want him to hurt her.”

“Do you think he would?” the wheels in his head began to turn and strategize like he did best.

“I don’t know him anymore. My father wouldn’t have locked me in a cave to suffer and yet he did. Have you found him?”

“No but we’re working on it when the time allows. The house is full again and there are more important matters like cookie fights to break up.” he explained with a beautiful faraway look across his face.

Ariana laughed as he spoke of something so simple that didn’t add weight to her heart. “Shelby again?”

“She has all the stubbornness in the world and I’m scared for Andrew when she gets older. Now that I’ve made a complete hopeless fool out of myself I should get going.” He stood from the small pink chair.

“Marc, wait.” she stood as he neared the door. “You didn’t make a fool of yourself. I’m actually glad you came to explain all of this to me. I had myself convinced it couldn’t be true.”

“You’re gonna make an amazing mom.” He glanced around the room as he got his thoughts together before looking at her once more.  “Answer me and I’ll go and never bother you again, did you figure it out?”

She knew what he meant; she saw the answer behind his blue eyes and the hope as well. “Yes. The answers are in the books when you know where to look.” She glanced away from him and swallowed back hard. It got harder and harder to ignore the electric crackling in the air that came from him simply standing there. That part inside of her didn’t know how to stop reacting to it or wanting to get close enough to touch the fire.

Marc smiled. “You remembered.” His smile fell and his dropped his eyes to the floor. “You make me wish for things that’ll never be true. If I didn’t care as much as I did for Jax I’d fight for you.”

“What are you going to tell him?” it was easier to ask that than address what he was confessing.

“I’ll tell him everything if that’s what you want.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to lie anymore but I don’t know if it should come from you or me.”

“I lied about this for years and put you in a difficult situation you had no warning about. I owe it to the both of you to talk to him first. I’ll go now.”

Ariana watched him wishing it didn’t have to be like this. Apart of her wanted to stop him and somehow make it better. Everyones lives were about to get shook up in ways they didn’t deserve.

Jax certainly didn’t deserve this but there was no other way. She couldn’t enter a person into this drama of secret and lies.

She sat back on her bed and hoped with all her heart and soul they could find a way to work through it and raise their baby together. She was loaded with doubt, he was going to be furious, but the small glimmer of hope continued to burn.

She looked around her room and didn’t care about the report due tomorrow or the mess across her desk.

This had once been her dream but everything changed the day she fell in love with Jackson Reed. Over the last year she went through the motions giving herself to her studies completely but now that she and Jax had reconnected, now that they were having a baby, she couldn’t pretend away at school like it was what she wanted anymore.  

She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want this life.

Ariana closed her eyes and let herself envision what life could be like a year from now with her baby in her arms and Jax by her side. They would be happy with no more secrets or separation in the life she dreamt of. There would be no more threats of any kind.

She wiped away her tears and made up her mind to do something about it. Her father was still right about one thing; if she wanted something she was going to have to fight for it.