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Telling Mom
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All Grown Up Stress
Audrey“Eleven weeks,” I said. “Annabelle and I went for the ultrasound on Friday.” I pulled out the picture to show her, and her face lit up.“Look at that little peanut of a thing,” she cooed. “He looks adorable.”“He?” I asked skeptically. “You can’t possibly tell that from the picture.”Mom tutted. “Let me have my dream,” she said. “It would be good to have a little man around the household again. Besides, look at the way he’s positioned. He must be a boy.”I tried not to laugh. “Maybe it’s a boy,” I said, glancing at Annabelle.“Audrey’s hoping it’s a girl so that she can teach her to be a ballerina,” Annabelle said.“The world could use more male ballerinas,” Mom said, winking at me. “I always wished that I would have a boy to balance out you girls.” She sounded wistful, and I suddenly realized that I had never known if two kids were all that she planned to have or if things just hadn’t worked out for more. It suddenly seemed like something that I should know.Mom was wrapped up
All Grown Up Processing
JesseI knew that I should probably talk to Audrey. Not talking to her was driving me crazy. She had always been one of my best friends, and if there was anyone that I wanted to talk to, it was definitely her. I missed her. I wanted to know how she was handling all of this. I wanted to know what she was thinking.I wanted to make sure that she was following the doctor’s orders to rest and stay off her feet for a little bit, in case it was the stress that had caused that terrible cramping that she’d had the other night. It had been hard for Audrey to stay off her feet before when her ankle was injured, so I could only imagine how she was coping with it now.I hoped for the sake of the baby, our baby, that she was taking the doctor’s words seriously. I had a feeling she would be, though. Somehow, I knew that she was going to make an incredible mother. That little baby was lucky.It was one of the few things that I was sure of.The rest of it was all uncertainties, and that right there w
All Grown Up Audrey
JesseI took a calming breath to steady myself. No. I at least knew Audrey well enough to know that she wouldn’t do something like that without at least telling me that was her plan. Even though I hadn’t reached out to her, she knew where to find me if she really needed to talk about something like that. She knew where I worked, and she knew where I lived.At least, I thought I knew Audrey well enough to trust in that. If not Audrey, though, I had a feeling I would have caught an earful from Annabelle if her sister was even considering that.“You’re sure it’s yours?” Joe asked.“Yeah,” I said. I grimaced. “I actually asked her if it was someone else’s and that was why she hadn’t told me about it. She got pretty upset that I had even dared to think that she might have been with someone else. I believe her.”Joe nodded, and I could tell he was thinking everything over.“Am I right to be angry with her?” I asked, when he didn’t say anything. “I mean, she flat-out lied to me. You were rig
All Grown Up Baby On Board
AudreyI’d had a great day with Mom and Annabelle, cooing over all the adorable little things that we could buy for the baby in the local mall. I knew that they were really excited about the baby, but as much as I tried to match their enthusiasm, I still couldn’t help but feel upset and unsure. It would have been so much easier if I had known that Jesse and I were an item and that he was going to be there for me. For us.I still hadn’t heard from him, though, and now it had been nearly a week since he had found out about the fact that I was pregnant.It had been a long week. Other than that shopping trip, I had barely left the house. What was there to do? Anywhere that I went around town, there was a chance that I might run into Jesse. I didn’t want to admit that I was avoiding him, but the conversation that he and I needed to have wasn’t one that I really wanted to start in public where anyone could witness it.It was a small town. Soon enough, everyone was going to realize that I wa
All Grown Up Missing Him
AudreyI shook my head. “It’s more complicated than that,” I sighed. “He just got mad because I didn’t tell him that I was pregnant until we were on the way to the hospital. I lied to him about why I was back here, and he can’t trust me anymore.” I bit my lip. “I deserve it, for waiting for the perfect time. I just didn’t think waiting was going to end up making things so terrible.”“Oh, Audrey,” Annabelle sighed, coming over to sit next to me on the bed and giving me a hug. I knew she was probably going to be running late for her shift, but she didn’t seem to care. She just wanted to make sure that I was all right. I nearly cried with how much I appreciated it.She noticed. “Are you crying?”I had to laugh. “Hormones,” I told her. “I’m pregnant, remember? My emotions are all over the place.”She shook her head and went to grab me a tissue from the box on the dresser. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’ll be mad at you forever,” she said. “You didn’t see him when you were in Paris
All Grown Up Mending Bridges
AudreyJesse slowly came up to the porch, like he thought I might run in the other direction. “You look really pretty,” he said quietly.“Is that all you came here to say?” I asked tartly.The lips of his mouth twitched with a grin. “Just the start of it,” he promised me. “Have you already eaten? I was hoping that maybe I could take you to dinner and we could talk.”I stared at him for a long moment. So now he wanted to talk? I wanted to hear whatever it was that he wanted to say, though. I wanted him, so badly that I ached. I found myself nodding. “Let’s go,” I said, heading toward his truck.We were both silent on the way to the restaurant that had been our favorite as teens. I should have known that he would take me there. Back to where it all began. There was a part of me that was terrified that I was never going to be able to come back here again after this too-serious conversation that we were about to have.There was another part of me that soared with hope, wondering if this m
All Grown Up Moving Forward
JesseWhen I heard Audrey’s reasons for why she hadn’t told me about the pregnancy, I felt my heart break a little. Not because her reasons were terrible, but because I’d been so terrible to her this week. If she’d only explained things to me before. I knew that was my fault, though. I hadn’t let her explain. We’d been tired and too full of emotions to really talk last weekend, but I at least should have made time to see her earlier in the week.I didn’t know what I’d been expecting from her, but her actual reasons for not telling me were almost too sweet.“I’m assuming that you want to try to get yourself back into shape and go back to being a ballerina once the baby is born?” I said now, at dinner.To my surprise, Audrey shook her head. “Honestly, I think those days are over.”“I’m sure you can talk to your director and work something out with him,” I said, frowning. “I know there was the injury as well as this, but he seems like a reasonable guy. It’s not like you don’t have the ta
All Grown Up All Grown Up
AudreyI couldn’t believe that Jesse had gone to all of this work to build the perfect nursery for our baby. From the looks of the crib, it was hand-built, not just one of those flimsy things that you put together from the store. I could tell that there was still some work that he planned on putting into that, and there was a rocking chair only half finished on the floor. But Jesse was building me a nursery for our baby.I could barely believe it.Here I had been so worried that he would want nothing to do with me or the baby, when in fact, exactly the opposite was true. He wanted this enough that he was willing to put his love and dedication into incorporating us into his life and his home. He wanted our baby to grow up here just like he had grown up here.He was so perfect. I didn’t know how to tell him that.Instead, I was given the opportunity to show it to him.I caught his hands in mine and tugged him out of the nursery and back down the hallway to his bedroom. This time, I was
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