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.The baby was perfect, developing exactly as he should be.I had been offered to join a therapeutic group for teenagers who were struggling to adapt to motherhood, but I declined.I was grieving the baby I lost, not struggling to adapt to the one I had inside of me.This sense of despair would pass.I just needed to give it time.Not talk.I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to move forward.I thought that was a pretty mature response to the U-turn my life had taken.I was allowed to be sad.No one was going to tell me I wasn’t.So much had changed; so many incidences and bad choices pushed me towards my decision to call Mike to collect me on my discharge day.I hadn’t told my roommates Derek Porter or Camryn Frey I was coming home today.I didn’t think my pride could take their pity, and I knew they would tell Kyle.They’d kinda have to, considering the four of us shared a house-Kyles house.It was bad enough I would be returning to his house, I didn’t want an audience when I walked through that door with my tail between my legs, so last night when Cam came to see me I’d told her I had tests all day today so there was no need to visit.All three of them had classes on Friday, which gave me a few hours before I had to face them.If I had any other option, I would run as fast and as far from that house as I could.But I was broke, and going home to my father was not something I could even begin to contemplate.He was recovering from a lifetime of alcohol abuse, and the thought of arriving home pregnant wasn’t something that filled me with warm, fuzzy feelings.I had a pretty strong feeling that my pregnancy would derail daddy’s sobriety, not to mention my fear of what he would do to me.I was just going to have to save up as much money as I could before the baby was born so I could get my own place.Cam was my best friend and I knew it should be her bringing me home; she was the one who had sat with me day in, day out since I’d been hospitalized, but I just couldn’t face her.She wouldn’t understand my calling Mike; in fact she would probably be furious.I understood why.Mike and Kyle were brothers, a lieu estranged ones.Mike had played his part in the whole charade, but the difference was-and it was an important one- that Mike hadn’t lied, hadn’t hurt me, couldn’t hurt me.Not like Kyle had or could.Mike didn’t own any piece of my heart and I knew I could trust him.He was on my side.He had said as much when he arrived at the hospital to visit me after my admission.I had screamed at him when he showed up two days after I had the operation that removed my fallopian tube, and my dead baby inside it, told him to leave, but he didn’t.Unlike Kyle, Mike had stayed, and he took everything I threw at him- and I had thrown a lot.I had a lot of dark moments in the first two weeks; fear, doubt, anger, injustice were all potent emotions that had been swirling inside me at the start.When those feelings had lifted, a cloud of sadness took place.But Mike had stuck around on my worst days.And then he kept coming back.He told me he was sorry he didn’t tell me he and Kyle were brothers, that the guilt was eating him.He said he wished he’d warned me from the start about Rachel, but to be fair he hadn’t known I was involved with Kyle until I was so deeply devoted, that even I had to admit I probably wouldn’t have believed him.Mike hadn’t known about Rachel’s trickery and had been horrified over the lies Rachel had spun Kyle.I had been too.It wasn’t every day you met a girl who went to the extremes of faking a pregnancy, and hysterectomy to secure a man for money.God I hated that bitch.Rachel Grayson would forever be on my shit list.I’d accepted Mike’s apology because he was my friend.He’d been my friend before I was ever involved with his brother.I accepted his comfort and friendship because I needed it.I needed one person in my life that was solely there for me.A tiny part of my conscience protested that I was using Mike.As good as Cam was to me, and as nice as Derek was they were Kyle’s friends, and dragging them into the middle of this was unfair.Mike was mine and not Kyles.I needed him right now.“You sure? Have you got some papers you need to sign?” Mike asked looking rather uncomfortable but at least he was trying.I didn’t doubt his intentions.I was pregnant with his brother’s child, which was hardly a turn on.And I’d be damned if I was going to go crawling back to Kyle for help.The guy practically owned my life as it stood.I lived in his house, worked at his hotel, and had a small, but dominant part of him growing inside of me.“I just have to wait for the nurse to return with the papers.” I replied tugging an overstretched t-shirt down over my thighs.It was embarrassing as hell that my jeans didn’t tie.I’d been wearing pajamas for the past month and didn’t notice how much extra weight I’d put on.But my clothes had.Earlier when I was tying my jeans I had a ‘fat moment’ when they only zipped half way.They were catching on my butt and my widely spreading hips.And if my hips weren’t big enough before; they now seemed to be two inches on the wrong side of curvy.The swell of my belly was prominent now, but it looked like I’d gained a few pounds of fat than the look of being almost five months pregnant.Five months.I still found it crazy to believe that I had sailed through more than three months of pregnancy without knowing.It was unsettling.There was a knock on the door and I grimaced when the nurse rolled a wheelchair into my room.“You ready for this Lee?” She asked chirpily.I zipped up my suitcase and smiled.I wasn’t anywhere close to being ready for this, but I slapped on my brightest smile.“As ready as I’ll ever be.”Secretly I was petrified.The thought of facing Kyle, and the possibility of seeing Rachel again made it hard to keep my breathing even.I didn’t want to face him; our last conversation had ended badly.But I had nowhere else to go, and not enough money in the bank to last me longer than a week or two in a motel.As for returning to work, the idea made me light headed.I couldn’t escape him.“This is so cool Lee.Do you think maybe they’ll let you keep this?” Mike asked plopping himself into the chair and wheeling around the room.It was hospital policy to leave in a wheelchair, completely unnecessary, but unavoidable.“Why? Are you planning on needing one sometime in the future?” I asked amused at the excitement on Mike’s face.Men…“You will need one, and a surgeon to remove my foot from your intestine if you don’t get up and let your girlfriend sit down,” said the unfamiliar nurse who was a leaning against the door along with another lady I didn’t recognize.I blushed, and Mike jumped up from the chair, rolling his hand lavishly in front of him gesturing me to sit.“I’m not his girlfriend,” I muttered as I sat down quickly.Ignoring my correction, the nurse introduced the lady with her as one of the hospital administrators- a short frazzled looking blonde called Lizzie with an alarming amount of paperwork in her hands.My palms trickled with sweat at the sight of all those forms she was clutching.I had no freaking clue how I was going to be able to pay for over a month’s worth of hospital bills
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