Chapter 42 Chapter Forty Two
MARK’S POV
Recently, I have been very troubled, my mind kept skipping a beat each time it wandered and I remembered that kick I felt on Bella’s tummy. Most times, it was almost always as if I could feel how it had felt in my palm again, as if I was reliving that moment. It was like a daily reminder that I was going to be a father soon. I was going to father a child I had no idea if I wanted. A woman I have started to have conflicting feelings about was carrying my child and I had no idea how to deal with that. I felt stuck.
I had thought I loved Bella and I was ready to do anything to be with her. Final- ly, I got to be with her but I wasn’t so sure if I loved her anymore. My heart didn’t skip a beat at the sight of her or her smile anymore. I didn’t feel at home whenev- er she was around me anymore, instead I felt…suffocated and suddenly want nothing but to be away from her.
The only good time between us was whenever we had S*x. Those few minutes where I get to satisfy the itch were the only times I didn’t mind having her around and each time we were done I just wanted to go as far as possible away
from her.
Now, as we slightly argued as to why she had felt the need to inform Sydney about her pregnancy, I couldn’t help but remember that day. It had surprisingly been a bad day for me.
I had just divorced Sydney and the paperwork and everything was done. She was officially no longer a Torres.
She had driven off, looking happier than I had ever seen her. I remembered sit- ting there in my car that was still parked in the Bureau’s parking lot long after she had left; I tried to process the whole thing and come to the fact that I was re- ally now unmarried.
I had been aimlessly scrolling through Twitter when I came across the post
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she made few minutes ago; It was a fine selfie of her captioned, “Happy Single!” Even through the screen of the phone, merely looking at the picture, you could
see the joy and contentment that radiated off her, she glowed in it.
I didn’t understand why I had felt so sad and despondent that day but I hadn’t.
fought it. I didn’t want to. I felt it, pathetically reveled in it and passed through it. I remembered driving to a bar – till this day, I couldn’t remember which bar I had
driven to – where I drank till I started to see so many of my replicas in the room.
yet I still ordered for more beer. I didn’t remember what happened after that but I must have.staggered home because it was where I found myself the next day.
Only that I hadn’t been alone, I had woken up with a banging headache to find Bella lying n*ked next to me while the bedsheet was wrapped all around me.
She had lots of love bite marks all over her n*eck, her breasts, her stomach, her thighs…they were everywhere. I had held my breath as I lifted the bedsheet tan- gled around me only for my heart to sink to my feet when I saw that I was also
n*ked underneath it.
I tried to remember what exactly had transpired between us the previous night
and how it had happened but it only worsened my headache. My intermittent wincing must have woken Bella up because I suddenly felt hands snake around my shoulder.
I turned toward her and found her shy gaze on me. With an equally shy smile,
she leapt up and pressed her ch*st against mine as she hugged me. “Good. morning, babe.”
“Morning,” I murmured and my voice came out scratchy and detached.
I
I didn’t know how to react. Somehow, I had felt violated by the woman I loved. I had just gone through a divorce process that had strangely hurt and was not in
the mood to have S*x but somehow, she had made me do it.
Reflexively, I pushed her off me, but I made sure to do it gently. There was a per- plexed expression on her face but I ignored it. I cleared my throat, “Remember to take the birth control pill.” Somehow, I knew she hadn’t taken it so I reminded
her.
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And I didn’t know why I was reminding her to take it. When I was still married with Sydney, every time we made love, I would take contraceptive measures and still make sure she took the pills just to avoid any unintended pregnancy while I was married to another, it had made sense back then but now, what ex-
cuse do I have to make us use protection and make her take contraceptives
again.
Bella looked at me, a look of surprise and hurt crossed her eyes. She looked. away and then she finally spoke up, “I understand what you mean, I will take it.”
I nodded, got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Even though I already knew, I still looked around, hoping, but there was no sigh of a used condom. 1 switched the shower to the cold temperature and turned it, hoping the cold wa- ter would help me sober up and wash away my growing anger.
That day, as I dressed up and prepared for work… as I made my way to work up until I sat in my office seat, I felt uneasy inside.
So when she came to me, two months later, with an ultrasound report and put
her hand on her flat tummy, her eyes glinting with a mixture of hope, fear and
happiness, I hadn’t really been surprised.
“Tom, I’m pregnant,” her voice trembled, barely above a whisper.
I had just sat there and stared at her. I guessed deep down, I already knew she
was pregnant.
But I still reacted though. The blood had drained from my face at the realiza-
tion that what I dreaded had finally happened. “But I remembered that I told you. to take the birth control pill!” I had blurt out angrily without thinking or even con-
sidering her feelings.
As expected, tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at me. “I did take it,” her
voice quivered, “But it must have failed. It was an accident, okay? I didn’t expect
this to happen either. But, I want to keep this baby, Mark,” she took a step closer
to me, “And the doctor said my b*dy is too weak, if I don’t keep this child, I
might never have the chance to be a mother again.”
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My b*dy is too weak…
It was an excuse I had grown accustomed to. I could almost always tell when-
ever there was a but coming after a sentence that it was what she would say.
Her weak b*dy was always perfectly okay whenever she pleaded with me to
make love to her roughly. It was the only time her weak b*dy was strong.
But still, I couldn’t let her abort the child. I put it there, even if I was oblivious of
my actions. I could easily picture myself pounding into her in my drunken state.
Besides, that child in her womb would be my first child.
“Then…” Even to me, my voice had sounded stuck in my throat. I looked at Bel- la, feeling a bit guilty for my immediate outburst. “Then have the child, I’ll take re- sponsibility. It’s my responsibility.”
Hearing this, Bella had immediately burst into tears and thrown herself into my arms and cried uncontrollably. She didn’t care how solemn I had sounded or how transactional the admission that I would take responsibility had sounded, she was just happy that she was pregnant and I didn’t turn away from her.
I could only hold her gently, my mind torn in chaos. I tried to push the warring thoughts away but they would surface again; I felt like I had been duped. I felt tricked by Bella and that day, as I gently held her in my arms and reflexively pat- ted her on her back, I could already feel my love for her dissipating.
She moved in to my place. And as we lived on together as a couple, I kept hav- ing that vague feeling that the mother of my unborn child was hiding something
from me.
Suddenly, I started to reason our whole relationship from the start. We seemed to have been very into each other…very in love until we started planning for our
wedding.
We were together for quite a long time and she never for once told me or even hinted at it that she had any heart condition. Suddenly, I found myself married to the sister of the woman I loved because the one I wanted couldn’t attend our wedding as she had to be urgently flown out for a treatment. Then in a blur and
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Chapter 42 Chapter Forty Two
matter of minutes, I found out that my Bella had a heart disease.
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For a while after the marriage, I was ridden with guilt. I scolded and hated my-
self for not seeing the signs but I learned to live with it… or rather I learned to pour out my frustration and anger on my poor wife.
After three years of zero communication or any form of contact from her – only occassional vague reports about her health from her parents and her desire to
see me – she came waltzing back into my life, perfectly fine.
Her surgery and therapies were successful and she was fine again but she
had to live a fragile life onwards.
I had believed it was an opportunity for me to show her that I cared, make up for lost time and also rid myself of the guilt. And also because of my undying. blinding love for her, I had welcomed her back into the embrace of my arms and became a cheating husband thereby hurting the woman I was legally married to in tenfolds. Yet, I dared to blame her for filing for a divorce.
Another loophole in all of the conflicting relationship and life I had been living with Bella was that, since she came back, she had never allowed me to accom- pany her whenever she was going for her periodic heart checkup.
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