Whose Fault? (Editing)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Suddenly, he pulled away and I noticed a mischievous look in his eyes, "want to do something a little vandalous?"

I smirked at him, "like what?" He pulled a sharpie out of his back pocket, "where did you-"

Jordan cut me off with a quick kiss, "I found it on the ground."

"So you picked it up?!" I asked him, amused with the situation. He simply nodded and sat on the floor next to the window. He started drawing something; I couldn't make out what it was until he moved away. It was a decent sized heart with "WM+JV" written in the middle of it. Cute, I thought to myself. "Hmm.. it's missing something." I looked at it as if I was concentrating hard on something. I held my hand out for the marker, and he placed it in my hand. I leaned down and in the peaks of the heart I wrote "for" in one and "ever" in the other. "Fixed it," I said smiling. It was so cheesy, but it didn't bother me in the slightest.

I sat down in front of it, admiring our work. Jordan sat behind me with his legs on either side of me and kissed my cheek. I looked back to see him smiling to himself, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Everything is back to normal. "Our little secret."

With Jordan's last words, the scene morphed into a different one.

"C'mon, it'll be our little secret..." Xavier said from above me as he forced himself in.

The scene replayed itself in my dream, and I woke up with a start. Tears were falling down my face, and I made my way into the bathroom to splash some water in my face. He's not here. He can't hurt me anymore.

No matter what I told myself, I couldn't get myself to fall back asleep. The memory of that night running through my head on repeat.

I didn't ever leave the house anymore. I was too worried that someone I knew would be out and about or wherever I was and find out. That was the last thing I wanted. No one could know. The only time I left the house was for my doctors' appointments. That was it. But the next day was different.

When Max was up and ready, we made our way to a car dealership. I loved my Jeep but it was lifted high, had a soft top, and only two doors. It was top heavy and it wouldn't be safe. If something ever were to happen to the baby that could've been prevented if I had a different car that was safer for her, I'd never be able to live with myself. So I was trading it in.

I drove around a few cars to see how I liked them. I asked any and all questions I could think of about safety until I finally found one I was happy with. The car I chose was a Honda Civic; it was blue, beautiful, and safe. Max was being fake upset with me because he thought I should've gotten a minivan since I was going to have a child soon. He thought it was real funny. I just ignored him.

~~~

Five weeks later, I was feeling the most miserable physically than I had in the past five months, outside of the morning sickness. I was always tired, but could never get comfortable enough to sleep, my back was always in pain, and my feet were so swollen. Anytime I ate anything that was even the tiniest bit spicy or greasy, I got heartburn. Oh, and let's not forget that I'd developed major body image issues. I was at the highest weight I had ever been at in my life and I was going to keep getting bigger and bigger; there was also this darkish line that went up the middle of my belly along with a bunch of stretch marks across my skin.

I hated it. I knew it was normal for those things to happen, but I didn't realize how difficult it would be to get accustomed. It was all so taxing.

The good thing was that I could feel her moving around and kicking all the time now. It's what kept my spirits up. The first time it happened, I all but screamed for Max. He rushed into the room and immediately asked me what was wrong. I settled his worries and waved him over to me. When he was close enough I reached out my hand to him to put his in, then moved it to my belly where she was kicking it. I had asked him if he could feel it, but he hadn't heard me. I looked up at his face and it seemed like he was shocked beyond words. For a few minutes he didn't move or say anything, but when he did a huge smile appeared on his face. He told me that it was amazing. It's a memory that I'll never forget.