The time had finally arrived for Ellen to see her best friend again. Emma had finally agreed to come and visit Ellen in Ireland, and Ellen was bouncing off the walls.
With Koa at school, Ellen made her way to the airport, to pick up Emma and Olly. Ellen drove down to the airport in her BMW, as Kian’s Ferrari wouldn’t be big enough for two more people a baby and a couple of suitcases. Olly and Emma would have come sooner but the thing was, Emma was heavily pregnant, so she wasn’t allowed to jump on a plane to see her best friend.
Ellen waited by the arriving area impatiently. She sat down, then stood up, paced a little, then sat down again. Finally their flight rolled in and people started pouring out of the little doors. Emma came through first, with a couple of suitcases and Ellen ran up to her, a smile wide on her face as she grabbed her best friend in a massive hug. Then Olly came through holding a little baby in his arms and handed her to Emma whilst he greeted Ellen. Emma took the baby and handed her to Ellen;
“Ellen, meet Ellen” They had named her after Ellen and she was so happy about it that she actually started to cry about it.
“Hello mini me” baby Ellen clung to Ellen’s finger as if she were shaking it in some sort of greeting and Ellen laughed before handing her back to Olly, who was itching to hold his daughter again.
Ellen lifted the suitcases into the boot, strapped in the baby seat that used to be Koa’s and climbed into the driver’s seat, still with a smile on her face. Emma sat in the front whilst Olly was made to sit in the back with Ellen, but he was happy with that.
“So how was the flight you guys?”
“It was fine, shorter than I remembered” Emma spoke first, and Olly just nodded in agreement.
“How has life been with you Ellen?” Olly finally got to speak after Emma paused for breath.
“Life has been amazing, I have a job in a wedding dress shop as the main designer, Koa is now at school and loves it, and Kian has gotten more gorgeous and romantic every time I see him. Life couldn’t be better”
“Don’t you want a kid of your own?” Emma was going to be persistent with this question, Ellen could tell.
“I have a kid of my own, I have officially adopted Koa now, he is my son”
“Not biologically, don’t you want to hold a baby in your arms that you can call your own?” Olly could tell that Ellen was getting upset; he could see her welling up in the wing mirror, so he decided to be the voice of reason:
“Drop it Emma, Ellen controls her life, not you”
“Oliver Murs, I hope you didn’t just take that tone with me”
“Well I did, so leave Ellen alone, can’t you see that she is getting upset, this is supposed to be a friendly reunion, not a war”
“I’m sorry Ellen, and Olly, I know I can be abrupt and it was stupid of me to say something like that”
“I forgive you for being impetuous Emma, just try not to mention it again” Ellen held back the tears, because the truth was, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted a kid of her own, and she didn’t want Emma planting ideas in Kian’s head just as Ellen was settling down with her new job and new life in Ireland.
The rest of the journey was pretty much silent, apart from when they pulled up on the drive and everyone sighed at the sight of the house. Kian came out the front and opened Ellen’s door, like a true gentleman and unloaded the bags from the boot of the car. He carried them up to the room and came back down to meet the little baby in Olly’s arms.
“Kian, this is Ellen” Olly introduced them, and Kian held baby Ellen in his arms, and Ellen knew that the day had come that they were going to discuss their future together, meaning whether they were going to have any kids together. Ellen disappeared into the kitchen to ‘make some tea’, but she was really going in there to cry as well. They were all cooing over the baby too much to notice that she had been gone quite a while, she needed to think about her answer to Kian’s imminent question.
She brought them tea into the back garden, where they were sitting in the sunshine and Kian was in deep conversation with Olly and Emma, whilst the baby slept in its cot next to them. Kian pulled Ellen onto his lap and kissed her. Ellen kissed him but climbed off of his lap, and told them she would be back in a minute, she was going to the loo. She ran into the bathroom and locked the door before bursting into tears. She couldn’t handle being around that baby, with everyone cuddling it and loving it, it was becoming too much. The past was creeping up on Ellen, and she knew that one day soon that she would have to tell everyone about her deepest secret, which could destroy her friendships and her marriage. She sat on the closed toilet seat and sighed in a way of calming down. She washed her face with cold water and thought about her secret, her past that she wanted to stay in the past.
The thought of reliving that moment sickened her, and she knelt over the toilet and was sick inside. The stress was taking its toll on her, but there was no way that she was going back into that therapy, she could use the skills she had been taught to tackle the problem, but thinking about that made her throw up even more. She sank to the floor and there was a knock on the door that made Ellen jump out of her skin.
“Ellen sweetheart are you alright in there, you have been in there for over half an hour, and we are getting worried about you” Kian’s soft voice warmed Ellen’s cold heart and she grew the strength to answer.
“Kian, I’m fine, I will be out in a second, I was redoing my make-up to impress you okay?”
“Okay, but you don’t need make-up to impress me” Ellen heard his footprints disappear and she could breathe deeply again, which caused her to be sick again. She washed her face and came out looking as though she had seen a ghost.
She went into the garden and sat down on Kian’s lap once he beckoned her over. She tucked her head into his shoulder and placed a hand around his neck. She started sobbing and he could feel the tears soaking into his shirt.
“What’s the matter baby, why are you crying?” He grabbed her in a hug and Emma and Olly left them to talk by making the excuse that they were going to put the baby to sleep.
“I wasn’t putting make-up on”
“Well what were you doing?”
“I was being sick, I don’t feel very well”
“You don’t sound very well, when did it start?”
“Just then, I felt shaky when I was in the kitchen and now I have been sick, I hate it Kian”
“Well, I will look after you”
“I feel so weak”
“You have a temperature, you are burning up, do you think you caught something?”
“I don’t know, but I have to be at work in an hour”
“No you don’t, I will phone them and tell them that you are ill, you need rest.” Kian carried Ellen upstairs, she was too weak to even walk properly, and she fell asleep almost instantly. Kian informed Emma and Olly that she wasn’t very well, and Emma put a strange look on her face that luckily, Kian didn’t see.
After a couple of hours sleep, Ellen looked a lot better. Kian brought her some water and some soup, to replace the fluids she had lost. He left her to eat it once Emma had gone in. Emma closed the door and sat on the bed next to Ellen.
“How long have you been ill?”
“This is the first time in months that I have been sick, why?”
“So you are not being sick every morning?”
“Emma, I am not pregnant, I promise you, and no I am not sick every morning”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that you were crying in the car so I thought that your hormones might be going into overdrive, then you were sick and-”
“-So you put two and two together and came out with three”
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant?”
“Yes Emma, trust me, I am not pregnant, I would know if I were”
“How would you, you have never been pregnant before, you wouldn’t know” Ellen looked away and sighed
“I know from when you were pregnant, all the phone calls and video calls remember?”
“I’ll leave you alone now”
“Could you get Kian for me?”
“Afraid not, he has gone to pick Koa up from school”
“Okay” Ellen yawned and fell asleep again within a couple of minutes and Emma joined Olly on the sofa watching something on TV.
Kian came home with Koa and took him to see his mum. Koa crept over to the bad where Ellen was sleeping and kissed her on the forehead. Ellen woke up and hugged the little boy. She felt better, and the colour had returned to her cheeks.
After a couple of days, Ellen was fine; it was a bug that had finally left her system. She went back to work, introduced Emma to the workforce and showed her around the shop. The shop owners let Ellen have the rest of the time that Emma and Olly were there off, there wasn’t much work for her to do at that moment. She returned home and Emma and Olly borrowed the BMW to go into town together and have a look around, leaving Ellen alone with Kian in the house. She went to go upstairs when Kian came into the living room where she was but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back gently.
“Why are you avoiding me Ellen?”
“I’m not avoiding you Kian, why would you think that?”
“Because every time I walk into a room, you walk out of it, you haven’t kissed me goodnight for a couple of days, what is the matter?”
“Nothing is the matter”
“Emma told me that she thought you were pregnant, is that’s what bothering you, because you aren’t pregnant?”
“No, listen Kian we need to talk”
“I’m listening”
“I don’t know whether I want children of my own, as in biologically”
“Why not?”
“I can’t deal with it”
“How do you know, you haven’t had a child before”
“I know I haven’t” Ellen had started to cry as the voices got higher and angrier
“What’s the problem then?”
“You wouldn’t understand”
“Then tell me”
“No, I don’t want to”
“Tell me Ellen” Kian was getting angrier, and then Ellen screamed:
“I HAVE BEEN PREGNANT BEFORE”
“What?”
“No one else knows about it, it was a few years ago, I had a boyfriend who was violent and evil”
“Where is the kid”
“In a graveyard”
“Why?”
“I was six months pregnant and it died”
“How did it?”
“The father of the baby pushed me over when I told him, he wanted me dead, and the baby”
“What happened?”
“I had to give birth to my dead child, I had to live through that pain and I don’t think I can live through all that again”
“But I would never hurt you”
“I know you wouldn’t, but what if I lost it, I don’t know whether I could live with myself. He told me it was my fault that the baby had died, he told me that I should die with it, so part of me did, I almost took my own life more times that I care to mention. Then I met Emma, and she helped me through, even though she didn’t know the extent of what had happened. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to lose you, I couldn’t lose you, not again. Please say something Kian”
“I need some air” He walked out of the living room and Ellen heard the front door slam shut, and the Ferrari pull out of the drive.