she going to sleep?
I should ask Nathan but he’s already giving so much. I’ll just have to use what little money I have left to prepare. This is my baby and my responsibility. Part of me wants to get a job, but I’m not stupid enough to try. Nobody is going to hire me in this condition and I’d be a fool to think otherwise.
My phone begins to ring and I check the screen before answering. His voice and angry tone are immediate. “Where are you?”
“Not even a hello?” I quip.
“Hello.” He barks. “Where are you?”
“I’m just getting groceries,” I explain, moving away from Paula so I can have some semblance of privacy. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s almost five.”
“And?” I’m confused as to why that’s an issue.
I hear him exhale out an exasperated breath. “And it’ll be dark soon. You’ve been gone for hours.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in about an hour.” I grab a couple of bags of flour and throw them in the trolley, coughing a little when a tiny poof of powder hits me in the face. It’s not enough to cover my skin but enough to make my lungs constrict for a moment.
“You’re getting sick. I’m coming to get you.”
“It was a bag of flour,” I groan, almost stomping my foot on the ground. “I’m going stir crazy at the house. I haven’t been food shopping in forever. Let me have this.”
He hangs up without responding. I get my arse into gear, get the things I want and need, pay for them and say goodbye to Paula.
Nathan was right about it getting dark soon. I’m half way home and it’s pitch black. Fortunately I don’t mind driving in the dark so it’s not too difficult. I just hope he isn’t having some kind of mental breakdown.
He has no right to give me a curfew.
Or does he?
It is his house.
Damn this is so confusing and annoying and… gah. I’m going to go home, have a cake, a decaf cappuccino and curl up on my window seat with my headphones on.
When I park outside the large house, I smile. It looks like a postcard. Most of the lights are switched on inside making it glow in the midst of the trees.
My picture perfect image is ruined when the front door flies open and Nathan storms out. He starts shouting before he even makes it to the car. “You left at noon!” I climb out on a sigh.
“I’m fine, Nathan.” Opening the boot, I start grabbing bags. Nathan snatches them from my hands. “No lifting. I’m extremely disappointed in you, Guinevere.”
“For lifting?”
He shoots me a look that makes me pinch my lips together in an effort to not give him the same look back. “For driving home in the dark. You don’t know these roads.”
“I’m a good driver.”
“What would Caleb say?” He hisses. A whimper escapes me. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to talk about that. “I’m not trying to make you miserable…”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I say quietly, my tone warning.
I move towards the house, my heart thudding and my face burning as my anger cooks. Who does he think he is? I’m twenty one, not five.
Nathan follows me in, his hands full. “You’re acting like I’m the bad guy here.”
“Aren’t you?” I bite back and start putting away the shopping. “What the hell is wrong with you? You seem to want to control everything I do.”
He runs the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip, his annoyance barely concealed. “I’m just trying to help you, Guinevere.”
“Help me?” I scoff and spin to face him. “Well thank you, Nathan, for putting a roof over my head and buying me food, but that doesn’t mean you get to control my actions or what I do. I’m an adult. You need to remember that.”
“And you need to control yourself and your own actions before you end up harming yourself or that baby!”
I gape at him. He did not just go there.
“You’re grieving. Your thoughts aren’t your own. Especially if you think it’s acceptable for a pregnant woman to be carrying heavy things and driving at night.”
I laugh once. “You’re kidding, right? How many pregnant women in the world have done both of those things and have lived to tell the tale? You’re being dramatic and completely intolerable.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away from you.” I make my way to the stairs.
“I’m not done talking to you.”
“I don’t get it,” I spin on this shout,