As a part of my awesome week, thought I'd leave my awesome readers with a cheeky little update! Thank you so very much to those who reviewed the last chapter. You can top off my 'awesome' week by leaving me an awesome review if you like - wink wink.

So, cheerio. I'm off to pack my last few things for my flight to Sydney tomorrow morning which marks the beginning of my post-grad girl's week! If I have time, Far From Perfection may also be completed today as the finish line is in sight which will mean 6 more chapters are sitting there ready to spam you with updates!

Enjoy and please let me know what you thought!

P.S. - R.I.P Nelson Mandela and Paul Walker.

Chapter 31 – Out of the Comfort Zone

Bella's POV

I am safe. After months of living in fear and guilt, my little girl and I are finally safe.

With Rikki and Tam away for the next few days and since Zane and Will returned to their own home, Allie and I could finally get settled in the boat-shed while I sorted out our tumultuous lives that had been turned upside down, again.

Honestly, while it was unbelievably reassuring and comforting to know the position of security I was compared to the life of instability I had been enduring over the last few month's with my boyfriend, I hated the changes in our life that had occurred recently.

Ever since I was around fifteen, I had been a loather of change.

As a child it had been exciting never knowing how long you would be in one place, what experiences you'd find in any and every country out there and where you would end up next. But as the child-me, grew into a teenage adolescent, I despised the instability and unpredictability.

I craved the concept of having friends that would stay in touch with me for longer than six months after the novelty of being pen-pals and writing to each other would wear off. I craved the concept of sitting in a classroom, seeing your teacher more than you saw your parents each day, with an assortment of classmates that you either liked or didn't, all being pushed together in the dynamics of a room, with the same purpose to learn.

And that is why the Gold Coast is my favourite place in the world. Sure, it lacks housing the titles of some of the spectacular waterfalls throughout the America's, it lacks the most breathtaking views Europe had to offer and you don't always experience the indescribable vibe of unique cultures or cities in Asia, but the Gold Coast was the first the place I could call home.

Here, my friends lasted longer than any of my others had ever before. I got to experience classrooms and classmates in my last year of schooling before time had run out for me. It was the place where my closest friendships had formed, based on such a unique secret... It is where true love had blossomed and where the most treasured thing in my life had been born.

The issue of change had been something that I had considered many times over my brief stay at the Benjamin's neglected residence. I'd tried to nut out and pinpoint my exact indifference to change and why on earth I have felt so uncomfortable in a place that I had spent so much time in only a couple years ago, especially since I am with my girl, who I am more than comfortable being with after a year of inseparability.

My thoughts that I kept to myself were interrupted by two noises closely followed by one another. Two knocks on the door caught my attention abruptly, shaking me from my daydreaming, while I waited for the words that followed to reassure me that it is safe to answer the door.

"Only me."

The words had barely fallen from my mouth to grant Will entrance before the noise of the door sounded, creaking open in close connection to the familiar voice that had spoken moments ago.

A blonde head ducked past the door and into the room. "Hi. I was in the area so thought I'd pop in and check how you two are... See if you wanted some company?"

"Why not?!" I smile, thankful for a distraction from my ungrateful thoughts of disliking change and being equally thankful for some company that could actually respond to me with answers greater than two or three words. "So what were you doing around here? Spying on us?"

"You wish. I've just been dropping off my resume nearby... I tell you, finding a job on the Coast is like pulling hen's teeth!" he exclaimed dramatically with a touch of exasperation to add to his explanation.

I gestured to the remaining small pile of papers in Will's hands as he flicked them to and fro. "Let me see. I'll see if I'd employ you or not by looking at that."

He let go of the papers and passed them to me and right from my first look at the documents, I tried to hide my true opinion of them to spare Will's feelings. The layout and formatting of the documents was appalling and I hated the fact that I had seen eleven year old's documents that looked more professional than the ones in front of me.

The font is default, tacky, every word on the page is one size, nothing stood out and I nearly had to play hide and seek to find the name of my former boyfriend on the page.

"I know that face, Bells. What's wrong with it?" Will questioned, but it was only as I looked up from my focus on the page that I noticed he had been watching me, trying to read my expression the entire time. Besides, let's face it, the resume looked that awful that no amount of trying or acting classes could have concealed even a fraction of my impression from someone who knew me that well.

"Uh, honestly, I can see some 'adjustments' that could be made to it... The first impression of a resume is generally the foremost thing that they will look for when scrounging for future employees.

Will nodded understandingly at my point that I had made a special effort of watering down to feed him a mild version of my opinion. "If you would like me to, I can retype it and format a bit differently?" I offer in expansion to my first response of his resume, purposely doing so before he had the chance to ask me what exactly was wrong with it. Or not wrong with it in this case.

"If you want to and if you're sure you have time, then you can be my guest. I'm not too good with the computer, as you can probably see."

I nodded enthusiastically as Will took a final wary look over the documents that had been returned to him, before passing them back to my possession. "Of course I can do it! It'll be a help to me too since I've been struggling to find things to do when Allie's asleep."

"Thanks. I appreciate it. Hopefully your expertise in the design thing will help with getting at least an interview! Speaking of Allie, where is that kid?"

"Fast asleep" I remarked simply, gesturing to the rooms behind us in contribution to my answer. "I'm expecting her to wake up from her nap at anytime if you wanted to wait around for a cuddle?"

Will nodded, taking a seat in the room, closest to his standing position, appearing to settle as he waited. "Why not?! I had nothing better planned this afternoon and it'll be more affection than I'd get from Zane if I went home... Oh by the way, I've been meaning to ask you, but apart from the obvious, were you okay the other night when you and Zane got back? You seemed really shaken by something, but I wasn't sure if you were just nervous about getting away? I didn't want to ask you in front of the others."

In the past, I have always tried to take the same path that I deemed easier. Although I'm naturally a chatty person, I have always kept the bigger things to myself, any problems in my life. That's the way I prefer to deal with it - alone, impacting as few people as possible and with the persona that nothing has happened or changed. It's been my default since I was young. I believe that is the reason why to this day I have never told my parents of becoming a mermaid. It was why I'd tried to hide the abusive side of my relationship and fix things by myself before the others uncovered the truth and it was why I'd hesitated in telling Will about Allie for so long, even after I'd had chances to.

However, even though I knew I could take the easy way out which would be to avoid the question, just as I had done for the other big one that night. Will had already laid the path out for me to just brush it off, no further questions asked, but something deeper within me needed me to release for a reason I will never understand, so I let it out without giving the confession as much thought as I probably should have.

"The other night, at the dinner, he proposed. Daniel asked me to marry him."

It wasn't until a few moments later that I looked up from the ground that had caught my attention before I noticed Will's fixed expression of shock, until he briefly escaped the fixation to flash a look at my hand, that quickly looked back to my face. "What? Why didn't you say anything? You left him, so you said no, didn't you?"

"No... I said yes, initially" I confessed with a sighed reflection of the happenings of the other night that had all happened so fast that they had the general perception of one big blur.

The thoughts behind the look on his face was hard to read past the confusion, the startling and perhaps even the anger before I could add to my initial answer and explain what he had probably assumed was the mark of me losing my mind.

"It was so public, in front of everyone in the restaurant and he had a ring and everything... It didn't change me leaving him, obviously, but I thought I was doing the right thing at the time since I knew that I would already have to break his heart that night. I didn't want to risk his ego and threaten anything going wrong with trying to get away with Zane in case he flipped. I left the ring at the apartment though... So, I'm pretty sure I'm now eligible for the shortest engagement ever."

Will's shock was clearly evident as he shifted back in surprise, appearing as though he had been winded by the news that I had just confessed. "You're kidding me?! I didn't see that one coming!"

"I did..." I replied with an honest sigh, shrugging his surprise and response off as I recalled past conversations of a similar nature with Daniel. "I'm really not that surprised at all. It was the setting and public proposal that threw me, not the proposal itself. I mean, for months he has been subtly and not-so subtly been hinting at marriage and more kids. I'd always managed to worm myself out of those conversations in the past, but I guess he wasn't happy with that and figured it would be a lot harder for me to do when it's sprung on me in the middle of a restaurant!"

"What a jerk. He really is a control freak, isn't he?"

I nodded my head softly in acknowledgement of the statement that I had been living for the last few months. "Yeah, something like that... But really, I'm not completely innocent either. We were both playing our own games and taking whatever measures that we could to succeed in getting what we wanted."

"True, he was doing anything he could to keep you, while you were doing anything you could to get away from him. At least you won out overall.

"I know, and although I am so grateful that I am safe now, I actually feel quite terrible for stringing him along the way that I did with planning the dinner to get away from him and all that. Regardless of what his motives are, he still had such a display of commitment planned -with a ring and everything- and all the while I was basically planning on double crossing him."

I took a momentary pause to sigh over my negative contemplation's before I continued to speak with the hope of directing our conversation onto a more positive track that would get my mind off of what had been weighing on it rather heavily. "So how did you three go with miss A the other night? Who's more traumatized after it? Allie, or her babysitter's?"

"If anyone, she probably is... We had no trouble with her. She's such an easy kid!"

"I know..." I smiled, listening to the description of my little girl's temperament that I am more than thankful for, before my focus was split from a distraction that I could hear through the paper-thin walls a few rooms away. "I'm pretty sure I can hear her. If she's 'such an easy kid', do you want to go and get her?"

The hesitation quickly infected Will's previously smiling expression. "I don't know... I'm probably not the first person she wants to see when she wakes up."

"Well too bad. For both of you! She should have kept sleeping if she didn't want to see you and you shouldn't have waited around if you didn't want to see her!"

Exhaling a sigh of defeat, he wordlessly got up and walked through his former home, returning moments later with a sleepy pink figure, looking much happier as he returned than when he had left. "She sings to herself when she wakes up? Or whatever you call it when she repetitively 'la-la-la's' to herself?!"

"Most of the time she will, yeah" I confirmed as he returned his gaze to our daughter in besotted amazement.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've just found the perfect child."

I laughed at the statement from the amateur father, despite the fact I definitely had nothing to complain about from such an easy girl. However, memories of the sleepless nights from Allie's teething upsets of a few months ago along with the throbbing back pains I had been enduring today after the kicks throughout the night from when her little feet lodged into me since I have been sharing a bed with her last night were harder memories to erase that contradicted his statement.

"Something like that... I'm lucky that for the most part, she's an angel."

"It's not just luck. Allie's a credit to you. It can't have been easy, but I'm sure that you've been working hard at bringing up a beautiful little girl. You know, everyone's proud of you for getting away from Daniel and we don't know how hard that would have been for you, Bells. More than that though, I think you're far stronger than what you realize with Allie to not only have put yourself up to it and be willing to sacrifice the next eighteen years of your life for her, especially when you were alone, but to also be able to do it when I remember that you've never exactly been all for 'team change' and hate any big changes."

The girl in his arms was evidently listening to the conversation that she had no understanding of, her little head darting back and forth between us as she heard her recognizable name.

"Thanks... Strangely enough though, I think accepting the whole prospect that having a baby would change my life was actually harder for me to deal with than raising her has been!"

"That's understandable. I know hard change is for you" Will replied with implications to the initial difficulties that he had experienced with me. Shortly after we had started dating I had found it challenge to change my life to conform to a relationship, which I had told my then-boyfriend about at the time, along with a full explanation of why I had found it so difficult, just to ensure him that it was me that was the problem, not him, so early in our relationship. "But in spite of all that, thank you for not doing anything stupid and not giving her up or terminating the pregnancy when although you know I don't agree with at, ultimately it was your decision."

I shrugged simply before I confessed to a greater detail than I had to most people.

"It's no problem. I know if I had done something like that, I probably would have regretted it later but it didn't make accepting it in the first place any easier. That was the hardest part, just to acknowledge and confirm the pregnancy and accept all the changes that were going to happen. Honestly, I really wasn't that brave at all... I'd suspected I was pregnant within a few weeks of our breakup, but I tried to avoid it for so long that I didn't confirm it until the second trimester, and people didn't know until I was about halfway through because I spent months trying to misdiagnose myself and just hope that all the symptoms were for different things... Food poisoning, the flu, chronic fatigue, anything that helped me to ignore accepting it!"

"Are you for real? Wow... I knew you never really liked it since your life used to be so unsettled, but I didn't realize you were that against change."

I presented him with another shrug and during the time I took to reply, Allie made some of her first noises since she had been taken from the bed after her siesta. The little girl scrunched up her face unhappily, making a similar noise to match with her arms outstretched in my direction. I was surprised she was still wanting to be held and hadn't wanted to bolt around the boat-shed yet. It was only after I took her that she settled and calmed down, allowing me to respond.

"Yeah, I think that is why it's been so hard to adapt since leaving Dan. It's all of these life changes again which is exactly what I want both to avoid for both Allie and myself. I thrive on the feeling of security and the thought of having to rebuild part of my life again is just really scary and daunting and having to settle into a new routine with work and Allie and finding a new place. There are all too many changes for my liking!"

"It'll be worth it in the end" Will smiled optimistically as he took a brief moment to look away and glance at his phone, assumedly checking for the time. "If there is anything I can do to help or make it easier, just let me know, okay? Anyway I better get going, got a couple other things to do this afternoon."

I nodded, gesturing to the resumes that were in my duty of care for editing and modifying that were placed beside me since I had taken Allie from Will. "No problem, thanks for the offer and thank you for dropping in. I'll try to get around to doing them as soon as possible for you while I'm still off work for the next few days."

"Thanks, I appreciate that. Hopefully that might help on the job front then. Anyway, I'll see you girls later" Will said, approaching us to ruffle Allie's hair before making his way to the door.

The girl in my arms giggled at the action. "See ya" I smiled, looking down to Allie at bouncing her lightly with a question and repetition hoping she would repeat the words as she has learnt to do. "Can you say bye-bye to your dad? Bye-bye?"

Pressing herself against me she turned shy as she mumbled 'bye-bye' into my shoulder which only vaguely resembled the words in translation.

"Bye-bye Allie" Will smiled as he moved closer and closer to nearing the door, seemingly pleased by the effort she made as he sent a wave in her direction before leaving with another general goodbye.

After Will left, leaving Allie and I on our lonesome again I pressed a kiss to her hair and reflected on the conversation that had just taken place and considered what had almost became the topic of the day; change.

It was like one of the 'We're Going On A Bear Hunt' children's storybooks that I would read to Allie at night.

The repeated lines of: 'We can't go under it, we can't go over it, we have to go through it' ringed familiarly and echoed within my mind. I couldn't avoid it, I couldn't change it, I just had to get through change.

Plucking my phone out of my pocket I had to just about dare myself to look at the device's screen.

Daniel (37).

I sighed at the name and figure of missed calls next to the name, along with a brief list of some of the text messages that were alternated between phone calls. Unlocking the screen which immediately skipped through to the missed calls page, I took note of the frequent phone calls since I had last checked my phone, with some taking place all within one minute of each other or with a five or ten minute break in between some of the calls which stopped several hours ago, an unusual finding for the pattern of panicked calls, while caused me to reach my own conclusion.

After that strange point of time and end to calling, I assumed that Daniel had been served the A.V.O. and at this point, seemed to be obeying the law I had taken into my own hands to secure my daughter and I.

That was another change on a much smaller scale, but nonetheless equally as frightening as all of the other life changes that were requiring my attention.

The cold hard fact of all change is that it means being pulled out of your comfort zone... Which can be even harder than change itself.

So. Thoughts, feelings or anything else related to this chapter? When I'm happy with the quantity of reviews, I put chapter 32 up. The more reviews, the sooner it's up.

What do you think of the Bella/Will/Dan/Allie situation now? Can anyone else relate to Bella's reluctance towards change? And was Bella right to initially accept the engagement or has she caused more damage than she intended?

Oh, there is still so much left to happen in this storyline. Just you wait, but the climax is in sight. Let me know if you think that you can pick what's going to erupt very, very shortly...

Next chapter: One Day At A Time... Cleo is urged to get her life back on track as Lewis, slowly but surely, makes progress.