The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Arry doesn’t come back, he texts from the airport and says he needs time to cool off and will call me when he lands. I don’t bother replying and he doesn’t text again to see why I don’t.

Heartbroken that he went and did the one thing he never does; walked out and left me when we are fighting the worst kind of fight. It feels like a betrayal, that he’s broken a promise and the way I am feeling, I want to hate him. Hating him for four days will be easier than missing him.

I go to the kitchen and grab the ice cream from the freezer, eating so much I make myself throw up and then lay on bed feeling about a thousand times worse. I despise that he can make me feel this desolate, that when we argue he becomes the one obsessive thought in my head, and I cannot function beyond it.

Love sucks.

I lay my hand on my stomach and flinch when I do, like an internal guilt filter kicks in and I find myself peering down the length of my body.

“I didn’t mean it.” I say loudly, looking at the flat expanse of stomach and then look away again refusing to acknowledge that I am even talking to it. I feel dumb, but I can’t shake the regret at telling it that Arry leaving was its fault.

I know what it feels like to have someone who’s supposed to love you, hate you instead. I’m nothing like them. Even though I don’t want it, something in me feels like a shitty human for telling it this is it’s doing.

I get frustrated with myself and try to shake the conflicting confusing thoughts out of my head and sit up. Still tear stained, still sniffing and ache for him, even though I hate him.

I try to push down the nausea which swirls around me whenever it feels like it is peeking out and banish all thoughts of something growing inside of me away harshly, like I do every time my mind strays there.

Don’t think it exists and it won’t be real. Ignore it.

I notice my phone is lit up across on the bedside table and realize I left it on silent after I got his text. it’s been a long time since he left. An hour maybe. I don’t even know what time his flight was going out, so it might be him if he is sat in the departure area waiting. I get up slowly and wander over to it, seeing the list of missed calls and one text. All with little ‘Arry xXx’ symbols in a row.

Despite myself I pick it up and open his text, bracing myself for a lecture or something harsh and inhale quickly to suppress my anxiety.

I’m sorry. We need to focus on coming home, everything feels like it’s hanging in mid-air and suspended while we are stuck there. I love you, Sophie. More than you know. Both of you. Don’t hate me, baby, I’ll call you later. Xx A

me

at my stomach again with a pang of something I cannot put my finger on. I think it’s the fact he says he loves both of us, it does something to my insides. Tingly, weird feelings that make me feel

and take a nap and I can’t think of anything better. If I reply

or not, there is a little thing inside of me that is already growing. I have no clue how big or how much it resembles a

his fault everything is falling apart inside of me. My dreams and hopes were pinned on Paris. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life in

it or not, I won’t be able to start in New York when term goes back in two and a half months. I’ll be almost four months pregnant, Arry will be a nightmare, I know him. I remember what Jake was like

carer mode. Bossy and controlling if he thinks he knows best. It will be another round of fights and for what? A couple of months before the school

and fall behind. A whole year out is like wiping the slate clean and I would be as well starting all over again. My Career

a mom? About giving love and support to a little human?

child suffering and not give a shit about anyone else, that’s what I learned from my birth mom. My adopted mom got me at fourteen when the mold was set.

will even be a good mom at all; maybe it’s not in me? I’m not maternal. I’m selfish and childish and like Arry says, a Princess most of the time who is too reliant on him for everything. Can’t fend for myself, so how in the hell am I supposed to fend for a small little creature? Who cries and can’t talk or tell me what it wants.

million times in the past couple weeks and I get angry once more at how pathetic I am. I’m a mess, a failure of epic proportions. A woman who can’t even get

not good at nurturing and letting people close. What if I end up like Emma’s mom? Some cold unfeeling woman who kept her child at arm’s length and didn’t bond? Who screws her kid up as bad as Emma was messed up before Jake? She’s told me extensively of the affects her mother had on her over

anyone properly except Arrick. He’s the only one I ever let close, ever let under my skin properly in every way. Emma, I see as a guardian, but she still doesn’t get near the way

can’t love it or let it love me? What if I am so emotionally fucked up that the maternal instinct doesn’t exist in

I am low when I am angry or upset. She lashes out, she acts like an idiot when she’s in pain or defensive. She pushes people away and she runs. Every fucking time it gets too much, she runs. Whether physically, mentally, or emotionally. I’m doing it now, with him, with this. I’ll do it with my kid, and I will fuck it up the way I am fucked

if I hurt

This is why I won’t stop and face the fact that there is a baby inside of my womb. I can’t let a baby have me as a mother. I can’t destroy an innocent little human that way. Arrick would dismiss this, tell me I am overreacting, but this is how I feel. This is what

stay afloat. We don’t talk because it goes one way and that’s exactly

and catch my breath. I need to stop thinking and let it go. Go to bed and sleep because I’m shattered and haven’t slept much in days. I’ll feel better. I’ll be saner and less emotional if I sleep it off. Then when I wake up, I can text him back and try to not kill each other while half a world apart and get my shit together for him coming home. I need to give him a reason to come home to me. I want him to miss me,

curl up under the duvet with the intention of blocking it all out, switching on the TV in our room for some atmosphere. It’s too quiet when

***

in darkness with the smells of food wafting through the apartment and the faint sounds of music. That means Janetta is in the kitchen and by the looks of it I have slept the entire day away. I must have needed it more than I realized, and I sit up groggy and lightheaded. I feel weird. Hot, but not like flushes hot. I’m feverish and the nausea is all consuming. My head is throbbing, and I am so thirsty my throat aches. My