Ultrasound day! I waddled to the office my stomach now prominent with pregnancy, it was weird how everyone parted the halls. Made me feel like Moses. Anyways my bump hit the desk as I handed over a note from my mom excusing me from the last half of the day for my ultrasound. It'd be my millionth one. Miss Riley gave me a judgmental look as she handed me my pass, I gave her the sweetest smile I could muster. I didn't need her judgement along with everyone else's. I put my hand on my belly and headed out of the office, a crowd surrounded Bellamy as he rehashed his weekend hijinks. I have no idea how we became such good friends or how he got so popular, but I kind of missed him. We haven't been speaking much these days, not since I got pregnant. He looked really fit in running shorts and a really
"Did you hear Clarke Griffin is pregnant?" Someone asked him. I could see his Adam's apple jerk as he nodded yes. His face looked pained.
"Did you hear it's yours?" Another person asked.
"Yeah." He said through gritted teeth. A couple of his posse snickered as I waddled past them.
"Blake." I nodded.
"Griffin." He replied. His jaw was locked tight, I could tell by the tension it held. Everyone around him began whispering. I kept walking and tried to speed up but the bump made it super uncomfortable. It was weird to think that it was a full fledged human growing inside of me, but remembering it was Bellamy's made me kind of happy. I would rather it be my best friends than some random guys or anyone else's. I don't know I wish we were older so it could be ours but I knew in my heart of hearts this kid...this kid belonged to the Groundling's. This baby was Costia's child no matter how badly I wished it wasn't. I continued the day as usual, ignoring the stares and such from my peers. The time came for me to leave school for my appointment, it was lunch time and Kane had just texted me to haul it to the car because it was freezing outside. I was trying to maneuver around the crowd that flooded the hallway. I was almost to the door when I ran into Bellamy. He held a box of donuts, his face lit up into a heartbreaking smile. I couldn't help but give him the same smile in return.
"Hey Bell." I say. We've totally stopped in the middle of the hallway not caring if people get all huffy and puffy and have to walk around us.
"So hey, a bunch of us were going to see that movie that's supposed to be really awful and throw donut holes at the screen." He said nervously, motioning to the box in his hand.
"Do you want to come along?" He asked. My heart cried for me to say yes, but my head said no, because of this stupid baby.
"You know I would love to, but I um...I have an ultrasound today. I can't" I said. Bellamy shifted on his feet.
"Should I go...you know with you to that?" It hadn't crossed my mind that he'd even want to go after I had ignored him for the last couple of months since I discovered that I was giving the gift of life. I hadn't included him in the adoption process or anything.
"You can't waste those donut holes. Maybe I could drop by later though?" I suggested.
"Oh um, yeah I think Octavia would love to see you." He replied. I just wanted to hug him for being so sweet, and kick myself for being so awful.
"I'll see you later then, bye Blake." I smiled. The look in his eye didn't settle well with me.
"I'll save you a seat Griffin."
We both knew it'd be awhile.
Ok so the first thing you should know about ultrasounds is one: you have to pee through most of it and two: the gel is cold and sticky and gross and it makes me regret keeping this thing sometimes. Raven had come along with us, and leaned over me to look at the monitor as Kane sat down next to us. He had volunteered to take me because my mom was in a really important surgery, it was nice having him around, a good solid male figure in my life is just what I needed. But him taking an active role in this and being so cool about his step-daughter getting knocked up was also really nice. I put an arm behind my head and lifted up my shirt revealing my ever growing bump, purple stretch marks were starting to form on my pale belly. The technician arrived and dimmed the lights in the room, she also turned the monitor on and squeezed that nasty gel on my stomach. It gave me goosebumps as she started to move the contraption around looking for the baby. Soon, pictures filled the screen next to us, black and white of course, but there it was.
"Ok...so there's your baby Miss Griffin." She said happily. Raven, Kane, and I all ooed and awwed over how small and precious it was. This really was a miracle.
"Woah look at baby big head, hey that thing is freaky looking." Raven joked.
"I am a sacred vessel, all you have in your stomach is Taco Bell." I laughed. The technician proceeded to show us the feet, the body, and all the other parts.
"Would we like to know the sex?" She asked.
"Oh yeah!" Raven cheered.
"Sure why not?" Kane grinned.
"No!" I rejected. They all looked at me. Raven started begging me to change my mind.
"No the thing is, I want it to be a surprise for Costia and Lexa and if you tell me I'm just going to spoil it. So there will be no sex." I declared. The technician nodded.
"Are Costia and Lexa your friends at school?" She asked.
"Oh no, they're the adoptive parents." I explained.
"Well, that's good then. Thank goodness for that"
"Excuse me?" Kane said. The woman looked passive.
"It's just, I've seen a lot of teen moms come through here and it's a very poisonous environment."
"How do you know that I'm so poisonous?" I demanded. This lady was serious?
"How do you know they won't be child molestors?"
"Or stage parents?" Raven included.
"For all you know they could be utterly negligent and do a far worse job than my idiotic step-daughter would. Have you ever considered that?" Kane snapped. Raven and I looked at each other and opened our mouths.
"No...I hadn't"
"What's your job title here?"
"I'm an ultrasound technician sir."
"Well I'm a business owner and I think we both ought to stick to what we know then."
"Excuse me?" She scoffed.
"What? You think because you get to play picture pages all day that you're so special? Her five year old sister could do that."
"And she's not the sharpest tool in the shed." I chimed in.
"So why don't you go back to night school in God knows where and learn a real trade." Marcus finished. Raven and I held our breath because we knew we'd burst into a massive fit of laughter if we didn't. The technician slowly rose from her stool and left the room. It was at that moment Raven and I stared at my stepdad.
"Kane...you're a dick!" Raven laughed.
"I love it!" I cried. We continued laughing even as we wiped down my sticky belly and headed to the car. The doctor had told us we'd never get the same technician ever again, thank goodness. He printed out a snapshot of the ultrasound where you could see the whole baby and gave it to me, it fit perfectly inside my wallet. Once we dropped Raven off we went home and I headed upstairs to lay down a bit. The events of today made my head hurt, God...why wasn't anything normal anymore? Why did everything have to be so difficult? I stared at my ceiling losing my mind thinking and poking my swollen belly as if to say "this is your fault tiny person growing inside me". At that moment I took out the picture from my wallet and stared at it, sitting up I got an idea. Kane was still downstairs reading some book on business strategy, I told him I was gonna borrow the car and headed to Costia's house.
It took two hours but I did it, after adjusting my seat three times because of the uncomfortable nature that is driving while pregnant. I waddled as quickly as I could to the door, fixing my haphazard ponytail right before I knocked. Lexa answered, she looked really pretty, her hair was in a loose bun, and she was wearing yoga pants and off the shoulder top.
"Clarke? Hi...what are you doing here?" She asked confused.
"I brought you and Costia something! Is she here?"
"Oh no she's running a few errands…" my shoulders slumped.
"Alright some other time."
"Um come in why don't you? She'll be back in a little bit." Lexa suggested, she opened the door a bit wider for me. I hesitated.
"I'm not going to bite you. Come on." She said rolling her eyes. Carefully I walked in and took another look at their grand house. Just as I remembered it, still gorgeous and perfect.
"Want some vitamin water or something?" She asked.
"What is it with rich people and herb infused juice?" I laughed. It got her to crack a small smile.
"They're not that bad." We headed to the kitchen and she pulled out a ginger juice and a berry blast flavor out of the fridge and handed me one. I took a sip, not too bad but it had that gross sugar free taste afterwards. Lexa sat across from me, her lips were tight as if she didn't know what to say.
"So...what do you guys do for a living?" I asked.
"Costia is an interior designer, I'm a musician and MMA trainer."
"Really? You?"
"Yeah, I teach some amazing fighters. But I get the real money from the music."
"Ah, what's your band called?" She gave me a funny look.
"I'm not in a band anymore. I do commercials, you know those Barbie commercials?" I nodded.
"Paid for this kitchen."
"Quite the sellout I see." I laughed, she joined me. I swirled the juice bottle around, this was awkward. I took another sip while we stood around the counter it was really quiet until Lexa cleared her throat.
"So you said you had something to show us?" She asked.
"I would prefer to wait until Costia is here. You know since it's her baby too." I mumbled. I definitely should not have come. This was just weird, yeah Costia was strange and uptight but I was too until I got over the pressure to be perfect. Perfect grades, perfect family, perfect little Clarke going to perfect little med school once she graduates from her semi perfect high school. God had Blake not befriended me, I don't think I would've had the courage to tell my mom I wanted to be an artist, not a doctor like her, that was the day we formed the band. Then again had we not become friends...I wouldn't be standing here pregnant. I touched a hand to my swollen belly and took a deep breath, Lexa was the mother too. She was this kids parent too.
"Actually, come on I'll show you the surprise." I smiled. Lexa grinned and headed to the den while I went to grab my book bag, being pregnant made it harder to maneuver around so I had to bend down awkwardly, holding my back with one hand, and squatting weirdly until my other hand snagged the strap that lay on the floor. Should've hung this damn thing up...anyways the ultrasound photo was in my wallet which Bellamy made for me out of purple duct tape and Velcro. Once I found the black and white image of our baby I waddled into the den and held it behind my back, Lexa sat on the cream colored couch picking at her nails.
"Behold! Your future child." I proclaimed holding out the photo to her. Her green eyes scanned it, no emotion filled them.
"Well what do you know? Look at that." She said. I figured she would've been happier to see this baby. I decided to hype her up a bit more.
"You know personally I think it looks like Bell."
"Who's that?" Lexa asked taking the photo and holding it closer.
"He's the dad." I grinned. She nodded slowly and put the picture down on the table. It was then that I noticed the CDs they had in their tv nook.
"No way! I love this band!" I cried picking up an Azgeda CD.
"I saw them a few months ago, they're still destroying the stage." She chuckled. I had no clue people still went to their concerts. Azgeda was a weird sounding metal band that mixed in old time tunes into their music to make it sound trippy.
"I wish I could see them live, Ontari is the sickest singer in this genre."
"Maybe you will one day. But to be honest Titus and the Flame is my number one." She said rummaging around the case.
"Who's that?" I asked, she stopped in her tracks.
"Seriously? What are they teaching you kids these days? Here borrow this, and I'll make you a better mix when I get the resources together." She said handing me a CD titled "FlaimKepa"
"Weird name...wait a second what the heck?" I stopped, I grabbed a movie off the top shelf and held it up.
"The Wizard of Gore?"
"It's got everything a C rated horror flick needs. Decapitation, Blood, guts, all that cool junk that'll haunt you for life." She smiled. Quickly, I turned in the TV and popped the disc into the DVD player and plopped onto the couch.
"Well let's watch it then." I demanded. Lexa laughed like a bell and then hit play, and for the next half hour we watched buckets on buckets of blood just oozing out everywhere. I'm almost positive it came out of the tv! She got us some snacks and such and we continued watching it in silence until she asked me a question.
"Bell is a girls name though. What's up with that?"
"Well his full name is Bellamy."
"What kind of a name is Bellamy?" She scoffed. I turned to her and gave her a stern look.
"His mom loves sci-fi so she named him after her favorite sci-fi author."
"Who is?"
"Edward Bellamy. So she named him Bellamy Edward Blake after him. I'm named after a sci-fi author too, a more famous one though. But if you ask me the thing he wrote was so pretentious.
"Why not Edward Bellamy? And who's the author you're named after?"
"Because Bellamy sounds cooler. Arthur C. Clarke. He wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey. He also wrote like over a hundred books and thought he had neat ideas for future technologies which he totally did. But it was one of the ways Bell and I bonded. My dad loved science fiction…" I trailed. Lexa nodded solemnly and we stayed quiet for a bit until the door opening broke the silence.
"Honey? I'm home!"
"Oh Costia is back we better um...get up. She doesn't like when I'm being unproductive" Lexa said rolling her eyes. I picked up the photo on the table and strolled into the kitchen.
"I'm good at defusing watch."
"Wait Clarke!" Lexa called. I ignored her and walked into the kitchen where Costia was dropping off a bunch of grocery bags, she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me.
"Clarke? What are you doing here sweetie? Is everything ok? Is the baby-"
"Baby's fine! In fact I just came to show you this." I said smiling. I handed her the photo and she took it, tears rushing to her love filled eyes.
"Look it's your baby. That's your baby." I whispered, touching her back.
"Looks like it's waving to you. Like 'hi Costia I'm so glad you're my mommy.' Don't you think?"
"Yeah it does." Costia cooed. I think her reaction to the baby was so much better than her wives was.
I decided then I should leave because I had a stop to make before going home and it was already super late in the day.
"Ok well I better leave now, that's all I wanted to show you. Baby's developing just fine, everything is the right size right weight. Oh my gosh it was so funny my step dad verbally assaulted the technician, we had to be escorted off premises." I joked. The two of them looked at me funny, well not funny but more like I was crazy. Costia smiled at me and then held the picture close to her heart.
"Well thank you for bringing this to us, I really appreciate it Clarke." Her smile was genuine. It was at that moment I decided I should probably head out because the drive was going to be long and I had a few stops to make before I got home. So I started for the foyer and leaned to the side to grab my book bag when I noticed all of the baby supplies like a baby bjorn, a swing, diapers, formula, toys, things the mother wasn't necessarily supposed to buy.
"Hey don't they give that to you at baby showers or something? I mean, when my little sister was born I was kind of jealous my mom was getting all of these presents and I wasn't but then I got over it because Bellamy helped me realize they were all kind of lame for a ten year old." I laughed at the memory. God I needed to visit him.
"Oh yes but we um...we aren't having a shower." Costia said sheepishly.
"Well why not?"
"People….they just don't know how to react to our situation you know?" Lexa explained.
"What situation?"
"We had this issue in the past where," Lexa gestured to me and my swollen stomach, Costia's eyes were sparkling with tears.
"Oh. Oh no, no please don't tell me you think I'm going to change my mind. Trust me I would never do that." I panicked. Looking deep into the mother to be's eyes I tried to assure her, this was what was going to happen. She was going to take Blake and I's mistake baby and raise it to be loving and caring and amazing. Maybe Lexa could teach it to play guitar, and it could sip those funky flavored juices and enjoy helping Costia prep their gross health food. They'd play games and they would give the baby the best life they could give it. One without me in it.
"Thank you Clarke." Costia whispered, she picked up my book bag from the floor. Lexa helped me into my jacket, her cold hands brushed my neck, it sent a shiver down my spine. When I turned around to say goodbye and thank them, she smiled at me intently.
"Here you are sweetie." Costia said handing me my bag.
"You know, you should go to China to adopt too, they practically hand out children there because of the overpopulation crisis and one child only rule. Just a thought." I grinned, they both gave me those weird half smiles and with that I was out the door.
I stopped for a blue slushie before I got home, tasty raspberry blue goodness. I decided not to chug it as fast as I could in regards to last time. The brain freeze was so worth it but the vomit afterwards was not at all worth the struggle. But then again, could it have been morning sickness from Baby Blake? It was almost dark out when I got home, there was a bitter chill in the air, winter was going to hit us hard this year, I wonder if it would be harder to keep warm with little Blake inside my belly? Would my jackets still fit? I know the elastic band was coming, mom had already altered a few pairs of my jeans which really bugged me but I wasn't complaining. I unlocked the front door and began to head upstairs when someone clearing their throat at the desk interrupted me from my mission.
"Oh hey mom." I said from the bottom step, my slushie was numbing my hands.
"Hi honey, where were you?" She asked, it was rare for her to be at that desk. It was dads, but he kept all of her journals and needlepoint in it. She was working on some weird dog thing, it had long salt and pepper ears, and big eyes. Dogs creeped me out.
"Um I went to Costia and Lexa's to show them the ultrasound photo, Costia wasn't home so Lexa and I hung out for an hour or two. It was cool." I shrugged. My mom rolled her eyes.
"You drove all the way out there?"
"Um yeah?"
"Clarke you could have just mailed it to them, and you hung out with Lexa for how long?"
"A few hours it was no big deal, we watched a bad gore flick and talked is all, she's pretty cool." I stopped myself there because my moms eyes went dark. She could tell I had a mini girl crush.
"Clarke there are things about marriage you just don't get yet, things you couldn't possibly get especially now but the bond between a couple is sacred." She scolded.
"I know that." I rolled my eyes.
"I don't think you do."
"We don't even have a dog!" I shouted and pointed at her needle work. ALL of them were pups.
"Because you're allergic and hate them miss. We've sacrificed a lot for you don't you forget that."
"What? Just because we can't get a dog?"
"No! Because you had to go screw up your life by getting pregnant."
"I'm giving it up!" Tears filled my eyes. I had known I screwed up and reminded myself every single day. Every time I felt the baby move I was reminded. Every time I looked in a mirror. Every second of every goddamn day.
"And that's amazing. But Marcus and I still want you to more with your life. What if this happens again? We want to see you live a successful life, go to college. What if-"
"What if what? I don't go to med school like you want? Newsflash I don't want to! You want me to! I want to go to art school and paint and sculpt and play music. I want to live my life the way I want, not the way you want. I don't...I don't understand why dad and Marcus could see it but you can't. You never could." I could tell my words had hurt her. I hadn't wanted to tell her this way but, I had to do it eventually. I just hadn't imagined it would hurt this badly. I could feel bile rise into my throat, and my heart was pounding so hard I think she could hear it. Her eyes were glossy, like they always were before she cried.
"Clarke...I-" She started.
"Save it." I snapped. I turned on my heel and headed for the door, but before that I opened her urn and dumped the contents of my blue slushie inside.
I was seething the entire time I drove to Bellamy's house, but I tried to focus my attention on the road as best I could. She had a point though...this could happen again. No. No it wouldn't because I won't let it happen again. I won't get pregnant until I'm ready to have children. Turning onto the familiar Factory street, I let out a sigh of relief. Bellamy's grey house came into view, I noticed a green Honda parked out front, that's right, Octavia was home from boarding school. Magnificent. I sighed again and placed my head on the steering wheel for a second. Frustrated with myself for arguing with my mom. Frustrated because of this situation. Frustrated because the man upstairs, my best friend in the whole world, might be outgrowing me. His popularity was thrust on him overnight somehow, maybe it had been a long time coming for him. But I was too preoccupied in my own crap to notice. I had my reasons though. Our band was struggling with our school schedules, he always had track practice, and the only time we managed to hang out was the night I got pregnant. Since then, I don't know, maybe I was just being a horrible friend.
"Here goes nothing." I mumbled to myself, I turned the van off and opened my door. The cold air slapped me across the face, it hurt to breathe, but I persisted to the blue front door. So many memories, I smiled as I knocked, hopefully I wasn't interrupting anything. I hear a familiar voice shouting from inside, the thudding of their footsteps got louder as they approached the door. It opened so fast it startled me, I grabbed my belly in response.
"Oh my god! Clarke!" Octavia cried, throwing her arms around me. I laughed while she crushed my neck with her bear hug, but I still hugged her back just as tightly. Her long, dark mass of hair swarmed my face, I sputtered as some of her hair got into my mouth, it smelled like pine needles.
"It's been so long how are you-" she pulled back and took notice.
"Surprise?" I shrugged. Her blue eyes darkened.
"Who's is it? When did this happen? Clarke what the hell?" She demanded. She crossed her arms over her chest, frowning at me as I tried to figure out how to tell her that this was her niece or nephew growing inside me.
"O, let her come inside, it's freezing out there." Aurora said from behind. She knew of my situation but not who the father was. I made sure my parents wouldn't spill to Aurora, but I knew word would get back that Abby Griffin's daughter was pregnant.
"Hi Aurora." I smiled. She nodded and headed back to the kitchen where she was doing the dishes. I turned and looked awkwardly at Octavia for a minute and then looked at the stairs before bolting up them, she ran up trying to catch me, we were neck and neck before I reached Bellamy's door, I ran in and slammed it shut, locking it for good measure. I rested on the door panting, too much excess energy I didn't have was used up.
"Hello to you too." He said glancing up from the book he was reading. He was wearing his reading glasses which made him look way more innocent than usual.
"Hey man, how are you doing?" I smiled.
"Why are you here?"
"You know I just um. I just wanted to say hey and hang out. I miss hanging out on school nights." I said maneuvering down on one of his bean bag chairs. I stretched out savoring the feeling of total relief, my back aches all of the time, even when I'm sitting down.
"So...you seem to be getting, I don't know, pregnant-er these days?" He said. I stared at him as if he were dumb.
"Um yeah I am. But don't worry I told my parents not to narc you out or anything." He grinned at me, it made my heart skip a beat.
"Well thank you. So what um, what are you doing with it?" He asked nervously.
"Oh yeah! This couple a few hours away are going to adopt it. They seem really nice." I shrugged. Why am I acting like this isn't a big deal! It's a huge deal. It's his kid too.
"Oh wow. What are they like?"
"Well Lexa is wife number one, and she's just awesome. She likes old gore films, and she plays the guitar. We actually hung out this afternoon, it was cool." I responded. I tucked a loose curl behind my ear and began picking at my cuticles. I should've talked to him about this sooner. Or at least asked what he wanted to do. What if he wanted to keep it?
"Is that normal?"
"No but let's be real, nothing about this is normal." I finished. He smiled again and looked down at his book, something was on his mind but I couldn't read him. It made my throat close up when I realized that, I can't read my best friend anymore. We were growing apart and I wasn't imagining it.
"So I'm going to look like a whale soon. Will you still think I'm adorable?" I judged his hand with mine and rested it close by. Almost touching.
"I always think you're adorable Clarke. I think you're beautiful." He responded looking me in the eye. I blushed.
"Aww, thanks Bell." I said sarcastically but secretly loving it. His hand inched towards mine, barely touching at that point, but I could feel the heat of his fingers on mine. He glanced down for a split second then back up at me.
"So princess, I'm thinking when this is all over, would could get the band back together or something." The thought hadn't even crossed my mind. Had he listened to me about the plans for adoption? Me looking like a whale because of this giant baby growing inside me? Did he care?
"Oh yeah! We could, once Jasper gets his new drum head we'd be set...I mean as long as his organic chemistry class doesn't get in the way." My hand creeped closer, hands just barely grazing each other. My heart was pounding harder than usual.
"You know...we could get back together too." He mumbled. That took me off guard. We had only ever been friends at least to my knowledge.
"Were we ever together?" I asked suddenly, bringing my hand back to my belly, I rested both on top to appear casual. On the inside I was freaking out.
"Yeah, you know at one time we were. I thought." He said. Bellamy looked confused and hurt, I helped and realized I'd put my foot in my mouth. But how do I get out of this? I was never his girlfriend, he'd never asked me to be his girlfriend, I mean we slept together one time. Granted now I had his baby, but it was only once. I didn't even know if it had meant anything to him, at least not as much as it had meant to me. But I had seen him flirting with other girls, girls who could give him what he wanted, any other girl could make him happier than I could. All I could do was frustrate and annoy him, this pregnancy was hanging over his head just as much as mine but somehow, he came across as if it were nothing. Especially now.
"What about Echo Spears? You could totally go out with Echo Spears!" I said quickly.
"I don't want to go out with Echo, she's mean, and smells like soup." He argued.
"She does not."
"Yes she does and her whole house does too." He snapped. I shut my mouth and stared at my hands, he turned his eyes back to his book, I noticed it was about the Holy Roman Empire. I took that as my cue to leave him alone. So after struggling to get back up, I headed out the door without saying goodbye.
A few days later, I still couldn't get my mind off of Bellamy and I's conversation. Raven thought it'd be fun to distract me by going to the mall and having a girls day out, it was also good to walk around for the little one. First stop was the food court where my stomach wasn't agreeing with me at first, Raven got a giant cinnamon pretzel with icing drizzled on top . We started our first loop around, taking in the business that came to the mall with the holidays, she wanted to get Mr. Collins a gift for Christmas for some reason. But we didn't buy anything yet, just looked around. She wasn't eating her snack just get
"Yumm! This pretzel tastes like a donut!" She moaned, shoving another bite in her mouth. Baby decided it wanted a taste.
"Give me a bite?" I asked with puppy dog eyes. Raven laughed and pushed more into her mouth, so I reached for it. We were both laughing our asses off, she wrapped an arm around my neck and circled me around.
"She's assaulting me! Help!" I laughed so hard I snorted. She let me go soon after and handed me a piece, I took a bite, savoring the sweetness.
"God that's good." I said. Raven smiled and we walked to the rails that overlooked the kids play park below. I heard a familiar laugh and immediately glanced down.
"Oh my gosh that's Costia! Costia Groundling from the adoption!" I said.
"Like pennysaver Costia?" Raven asked. I crouched down, then grabbed her turquoise sweater to pull her with me.
"Yeah that's her!" I smiled. She was with friends and their children obviously, the youngest girl decided to go through the tunnel so Costia leaned upside down to take a peek as if to say 'boo!'
"She's totally going to steal one of those kids." Raven said, taking a bite of the pretzel. I could see her smile was genuine, she honestly loved children and it was so clear to me then that she would be a better mom than I could ever be. She was going to love this baby, and make sure it knew every single day just how blessed she was to have it. It brought a tear to my eye watching her interact with those kids.
"Boring." Raven said finally. We stood up and walked to the elevator to go to some dress shirt shop for the Collins gift when a sudden craving hit me.
"I could go for a monster sized cookie with like a lamb kebab simultaneously." I groaned, rubbing my belly.
"Sheesh must you always feed?" She laughed, grabbing my arm as we weaves through the mass of people. But fate is funny, because Costia chose that moment to run into us.
"Oh Clarke! Hi!" She smiled brightly at me.
"Hi Costia, wow crazy coincidence. What brings you here?" I replied smiling. This woman was going to be the mother to my child.
"Oh nothing just shopping with my girlfriends." She said motioning to the ladies she was with.
"Nice." Raven mumbled rolling her eyes.
"Ignore her." I said. Costia shifted from foot to foot.
"So how are you feeling?" She asked finally.
"I'm great thanks! Oh hey, coming in on that snooze button." I said poking my stomach. Baby was doing backflips and somersaults, as if it were trying to show off for Costia. Say what you will but I can get really uncomfortable, I felt the little butterflies and groaned, knowing I'd probably have heartburn or acid reflux later.
"What's wrong?" She asked worriedly. Raven had turned around to look at the crowds again and finish her donut pretzel.
"Kicking, just kicking." I mumbled. She put a hand to her mouth and took a deep breath.
"Could I feel it?" She asked timidly. Why was she asking me? No one had ever asked me to touch my stomach they just did it then oohed and ahhed over how amazing it was to have such a miracle. Miracle my ass, everyone judged me for this. But I wasn't about to ruin it for the mom to be.
"Of course you can!" I laughed, I grabbed her hands and placed them on my belly, she kneeled. Then the baby stopped kicking me. I rolled my eyes covertly so Costia wouldn't notice, but we waited for a minute.
"It...it won't kick for me." She whispered. I could tell she was disappointed so I tried to remember what the baby book my mom gave me said.
"Try talking to it." Costia glanced up at me.
"Talking?" She asked.
"Yeah it may be ten thousand leagues under the sea but supposedly they can hear you. Just try." I said smiling down at her hopeful face. So she did.
"Hi baby, my sweet angel...I can't wait to meet you." She started. The tears were already welling up in my eyes as she spoke to my stomach.
"I can't wait to meet you." She whispered. Nothing was happening until she sighed, then baby started moving again. Her happiness radiated off of her, and she gasped, I could feel it kicking, but held back any complaints I had as I watched her.
"It moved." She said sniffling. Costia got in close to the spot where it had moved and whispered countless thank yous to it. A tear slipped down my cheek as I basked in her joy.