The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 175

Chapter 159: Surprise Pregnancy

Bella POV

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I pressed my face into his shoulder and felt the fear and the warmth and the strangeness of it all exist at once, which I was learning was how everything real felt.

Tom’s chair scraped back, his small footsteps. Then his arms around both our legs, his face tipped up between us with the grey eyes and the gap-toothed grin. “Are we hugging?” he asked. “I want to hug you.”

Caleb let out a breath of laughter and pulled back enough to reach down and pick Tom up, settling him between us, and Tom looked at both of us with the satisfaction of someone who had correctly identified the situation and inserted himself appropriately.

He stayed like that for approximately a few seconds and then leaned back and looked between us.

“Is it better than a birthday?” he asked.

Caleb considered this seriously. “Yes.”

Tom’s eyes widened slightly. “Better than the dinosaur museum?”

“Much better,” I said.

He absorbed this. “Better than the submarine we’re getting?”

“We’re not getting a submarine,” I said.

“Dad said we’d look into it.”

Caleb coughed as I looked at him while he looked at the ceiling.

Tom turned back to me. “Is it better than Christmas?”

“Tom,” I said.

“I need an example,” he said, with complete seriousness. “You said something good but good can mean a

lot of things. Last week Aunty Maya said the traffic was good and it took a long time.”

Caleb made a sound that was not quite a laugh and converted it badly.

“It’s very good,” I said. “Top five good.”

Tom thought about this. “What are the other four?”

“You,” I said. “Your father, Maya, Diana.”

He considered the ranking with the seriousness it deserved. “I’m number one though.”

“Obviously,” I said.

He nodded, satisfied with the hierarchy, and then looked at Caleb. “You’ll tell me first,” he said. “Before anyone else. Deal?”

Chapter 159

Deegmansy

Caleb looked at me as I nodded.

He turned back to Tom and held out his hand. “Deal.”

Clam

Tom shook it with the gravity of someone closing a significant business arrangement, then climbed down from Caleb’s arms and went back to his drawing as though the entire negotiation had never happened.

I looked at Caleb, he looked at me. Neither of us said anything because there was nothing adequate to

say.

I called Maya that afternoon, when Tom was napping and Caleb was on the terrace giving me space to have the call I needed to have.

She picked up on the second ring. “How was Sunday so far

“I’m pregnant,” I said.

Silence.

“Maya.”

“I’m here,” she said, and her voice had gone low. “I’m just – give me a second.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, tell me how you are feeling, what is on your mind right now?.”

“Caleb asked the same thing.”

“Because it’s the right question. How are you?”

I looked at my hands. “Scared,” I said. “Because the last time – because I remember what the last time felt like. And I know, I know it’s different now, I know everything is different, but the body remembers and

it’s there.

“Yeah,” she said, quietly. “Of course there is.”

“And then underneath that,” I said, “there’s this – I don’t know. This thing I keep catching myself feeling that I don’t fully trust yet. Something that keeps wanting to be happy.” I stopped. “Is that is that okay? To want to be happy about it?”

“Bella, Maya said, and her voice was very steady. “You are allowed to want to be happy, you are allowed to actually be happy. What happened before doesn’t have ownership over this. This is yours.”

I pressed my eyes shut for a moment. “I’m going to be terrified the whole time.”

“Probably,” she said. “And also excited, and also happy, and also tired, and all of those things are allowed to exist at the same time.” A pause. “You’re not alone this time, you are so spectacularly not alone.”

I knew that, I did know that. But hearing her say it out loud, in Maya’s voice that had been the first real voice in my life after the worst night.

“Will you come to the first appointment?” I asked.

“I will clear my entire calendar,” she said. “I will be at that appointment before you are, I will be there with

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<Chapter 159-Base Pregnancy

snacks.”

“I don’t need snacks.”

“I need snacks,” she said. I’m going to be very emotional.”

“Okay,” she said, shifting into doctor mode. “Practically, how far along do you think?”

“Six weeks maybe, possibly seven.”

“Symptoms how long?”

“Three weeks consistently, some things before that.”

“The bachelorette,” she said..

I froze. “What?”

“You didn’t touch a single drink all night,” she said. “I counted, you had water in your hand every time someone tried to give you something and you set down the one glass I actually handed you within four minutes.”

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“ן”

“I’ve been your best friend for years,” she said, calmly. “I know what you look like when you’re avoiding alcohol and I know what you look like when you can’t stomach it. Those are different things, that night was the second one.”

I sat there for a moment. “You knew,” I said. “At the bachelorette, you already knew.”

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