"You are pregnant"
Those were the words that echoed like a mantra through Ava's head as she sprinted down the stairs of the city hospital almost stumbling. Her heart beat with trepidation of what would happen after now.
Her mind was clear from what the female doctor had advised. "If the child was produced from sexual assault. This is against my rules and values and may revoke my license as a doctor but I wouldn't want a child to come into this world to know it was formed from rape. I can help." She squeezed her hand in reassurance, something her father never did.
Something no one had ever done. She knew what "she could help" mean. But no she couldn't, Ava rubbed her hand on her still flat stomach. Her child wasn't from assault. It was from love. Well not your normal love
A love that didn't have to exist but did. She laughed so mockingly to herself that people spared her glances, like she had gone mad.
Maybe she had. Who would want to keep a child that would never grow up to know its father because she would never tell him about this child.
He would have to kill her which was impossible with him out of the country. Thank God, he left, at least everyone would breathe in fresh air. His presence had taken their air. She mentally smacked herself, she was talking to herself in the middle of nowhere.
She hopped into the taxi that stopped on the first hail like it knew she needed the relaxation. She was tired and in a lot of distress, not just from life alone but now also from the growing life in her stomach.
Staring outside the window as rain splattered on the window. She leaned on it as the tears that she always held onto like the little dignity she prided herself around with fell down her cheeks.
She cried for once in her miserable life. Hiccuping, she cleaned the tears but they fell anyway. The driver smiled reassuringly from the rear view mirror and she smiled back but that made her cheeks hurt and she retracted it back. Not stressing herself on pleasing anyone this time again but herself.
She had an important person in her life. Her child. She cried more thinking how the child came into existence. The best night of her life. Who knew it would lead her to this.
She rubbed her stomach and a deep love was already there that needn't have to be learned or forced but existed only thinking about it.
In no time, the taxi dropped her off to her neighborhood and she scrambled through her bag for money which she knew was there but now wasn't.
Was the world against her now?
The money was there. She had put it herself after throwing up to almost death then leaving for the hospital. She sighed.
"Please, I'm sorry. It was just—"
"Don't worry" he smiled before driving off leaving her stupefied on the road. How helpless did she look that much?.
Throwing her bag over her shoulder, she sprinted off down the street. She needed to leave. It was evening and though she didn't know how fair the weather would be, she needed to leave the country.
Arriving at her apartment, she packed her clothes and everything useful she could find. Her mother's pictures and everything important that ever existed in her life in the apartment.
Packing them, she counted down the hours till morning because she was leaving the states back to her country. This place had been no more than hell for her.
Who knew coming to live with the man you considered your father would make you turn to the lowest of yourself?
While she mulled over her life on the bed stretched wide and face up the ceiling, she didn't know when she slept off. Not just the streaks of the early morning sun but the pounding of the door and her head.
She clutched her head first before stepping out of her room to go see who it was if it wasn't the landlord.
Opening the door a little, she peeked through and saw no one. Strange. She pushed the door closed before going to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take her bath.
With her ready and fit, she picked up her suitcase in her room to leave. Holding the door knob in her hand, she took one last look at the place she had called home in the past few years, if it's not by the side of her mom or by…no never. He can never ever be her home.
She had dropped out from school after her father stopped paying her tuition and then earned herself a place in the world and here. She smiled and opened the door.
She needed to create a good and new life for not just herself but for her baby and that starts with going to the airport. She had booked her flight with the last check in her account but she knew who to meet if she went back.
Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them back, she had booked a first class. All the other flights back were filled due to the rain and this was the only one remaining, so she had to take it without leaving a chance to stay back.
"Oh shit. I'm sorry"
"Don't worry it's nothing"
Ava threw the coffee she had bought in the coffee shop inside the airport into the trash bin nearby before cleaning her coffee hands on her coat then taking her handkerchief inside her coat to clean his suit where she'd dropped coffee on but he stopped her hand in the air, smiling, he dropped it back by her side "I said it's okay"
She'd bumped into him while climbing the stairs up into the plane. With her distraught, her mind wasn't focused on where she was going even the cab she had entered, the driver yelled at her for being absent-minded but who could blame her.
She had another life inside of her and a new life to start. Of course she needed to be distracted. Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them back, paying him with the money she later found in her handbag.
And now this handsome stranger was rejecting her help. She didn't want to cry but she would if anyone yelled at her again.
"Hmm then take this and clean it yourself." She pulled his hand and dropped the handkerchief inside, storming away which made him chuckle lightly. His eyes followed her as she slid into her room inside the plane. He was amused. Amused at her cuteness.
His smile broadened as he inhaled the monogrammed handkerchief and sighed but it was full of contentment. He strode in back into the plane, forgetting where he was going however that would wait.