After a while Isle Esme was out of sight, and the realization that the only thing I could see on any side was ocean forced me to think about how in the hell I was going to make it back to land at all, let alone figure out how to carry this pregnancy to term in Brazil of all places.

I pulled back on the throttle until it was idling. Probably this was stupid, I didn't think I could remember seeing any boat come to a full stop on the ocean. It felt weirdly like stopping on a highway, but given that there weren't any other boats around me, I decided it couldn't be that bad to stop hurtling forward as I tried to figure out what the hell to do.

The idling boat rocked uneasily at an odd angle, kind of diagonally as the small swells beat against the back corner. A bigger one splashed over the rail, smattering drops on my face and tilting the boat suddenly, which made me lose my balance. I grabbed onto something, and the boat lurched backward awkwardly, at which point I lost any chance at all of remaining upright.

I fell squarely on my butt and instinctively tightened my grasp, which pulled my handhold down with me. The engines groaned and gnawed at the swells, and the boat leapt backward. Those benign swells now were angry, and lunged over the rail one after the other, slapping whatever part of me they pleased on their way to join the flood I was now sitting in.

Honestly I was terrified. What the hell was happening. It took what felt like several moments to realize that what I was still blindly holding onto was the throttle and an extra moment or two to awkwardly push it back until it firmly clicked again into neutral.

I sat there in the puddle as the swells returned to their calm rhythmic rocking and I sobbed, gasping for air until I suddenly pushed myself to my feet and threw up over the edge of the boat.

I felt so helpless and stupid as I hacked up bile and water on a boat I didn't know how to drive on an ocean I didn't know how to navigate. When I could manage it I sunk to the floor of the boat and curled up in a corner to buffet the chilling wind.

I guessed it was stupid to make a break for it, but how could I have stayed and put my baby at risk? Our baby. That Edward was determined was evil and couldn't live.

Although I was harsher than I would have liked to be, I actually was mad at him. Why couldn't he just trust me and respect my decisions? It was so frustrating that he didn't even ask me how I felt. He just decided that it was a problem, and of course he already had a plan that I would be stupid to object to. Because at the end of the day he always had the option of force. And if he thought I would die from this pregnancy, I was sure he would not hold back from using it.

I knew it wasn't ever his intention to treat me like I wasn't enough authority on what was best for me, but ultimately sometimes he did. And for how I was feeling right now, I was happy to call him what he was: a sexist. Definitely the fact that he was a supernaturally strong and smart vampire affected the dynamic. But the fact that his only other interactions with human women happened at the turn of the century could not be counted out. Honestly, I supposed it should be surprising that he was okay with abortion at all given his antiquated value system. The tilted diamond ring on my finger that was currently digging into my pinky was an ironic testament to that.

The fact of the matter was that there was nothing I could do if Edward was not on board with it. He could have, and likely would have, stopped me from leaving if I hadn't basically lied and said I was disgusted with him for getting me pregnant and wanted to get my abortion without him near. I had to essentially read his mind and tell him what he would expect to hear in order to get my way. And it honestly wasn't too hard to tell what he might be thinking! Why couldn't he extend the same compassion to me? To know that I never would say something hurtful just out of spite? To fall for the same ploy that made Charlie let me leave for Phoenix? To know that I would never think a child of his to be a monster?

While sometimes I could put up with his chauvinism, this choice was just too important. It was so heartbreaking that in this case, the choice he was erasing was getting to meet my little nudger. The choice he wanted to force me to make meant losing him. A little nudger I couldn't help but love. A child who was already mine.

Thinking about him was all the strength I needed. Maybe in another timeline I could have just become a vampire and enforced my own autonomy until Edward got with the program. That at least had been my plan up til now. But that option was moot to my current situation. Now all I had to do was figure out how to care for the little creature in my belly until he could live. And then maybe Edward would see how right I was to leave and figure this out without him.

But that meant first I actually had to figure this out. And figuring this out meant finding land. I got to my feet and noticed the sky was getting a bit darker. How long had I been sitting here?

Okay a boat like this had to have some kind of navigational aids, right? It seemed brand new. I sat myself in the driver's seat and examined the instruments. The first thing that caught my eye was a globe-like compass, a glass orb with a flat disk that spun and wobbled toward north, installed in the plastic dash. As of now it seemed I was facing north east. Who knew how far I'd drifted, or where exactly I'd sped to for some-odd minutes, but even my rudimentary knowledge of Brazilian geography told me that I should be aiming west. Or wait was Rio on the weird elbow bit of Brazil? Would that mean I should have to go north too?

I decided to go mostly west with a little bit of north. I felt like the plan should probably be a little more complex than that, but it was definitely not going to take me farther out to sea, whatever happened.

I gave my little nudger a rub and kicked into gear towards west and a little north.