#huh at least i don't feel like my 22 birthday! that shit was fucked up. there's a bright side i guess ;)
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now i can make stupid mistakes knowing my mind is fully developed!
#ma birthday!!!#i've lived a quarter of a century!!#twenty five wild wild years#gotta be honest it doesnt feel like a birthday! is this one of the side effect of my mind reaches its biggest state?#huh at least i don't feel like my 22 birthday! that shit was fucked up. there's a bright side i guess ;)#i've lived another year against all odds! nice
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Dark Heart: past prompt "Don't call this number again."
Also prompted by anonymous
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13] [Part 14] [Part 15] [Part 16] [Part 17] [Part 18] [Part 19] [Part 20] [Part 21] [Part 22] [Part 23] [Part 24]
AO3 link
Fifteen months earlier
Belle groaned as she saw that the elevator in her building was out of order for the fourth time in two months. At seven months pregnant, the last thing she felt like doing was climbing three flights of stairs to her apartment. A note was stuck to the doors, claiming that a call had been placed and that someone was due to come out that afternoon, and so she made a decision. She set down the bag of groceries she had bought, pulling out her phone to call Emma.
“Hey,” said Emma. “What’s up?”
“I can’t face the stairs right now,” said Belle. “Are you anywhere nearby? I could use a hot drink and someone to bitch about this elevator with.”
“It’s out again?” said Emma, and sighed. “Look, give me ten minutes. I have to take Henry to chess club and then I’m all yours.”
“Corner diner?”
“On my way.”
Belle slipped her phone back into her pocket, shouldering her bag of books and picking up the groceries, and traipsed along the street to where the diner squatted, bright lights shining out onto the wet, gleaming sidewalk. The early March rain spattered against her face beneath her cloche hat, and Belle hunched her shoulders a little, shivering as the wind tried to get through her coat. The diner was warm and humid, and she slid into a chair at an empty table with a sigh of relief.
She ordered a hot chocolate, pulling out a book to read as she waited for Emma to arrive. Belle was relieved to have made a friend who understood what she was going through, and who could offer good advice. It had been Emma that had given her most of her son’s baby things, including a crib and stroller that Belle would never have been able to afford. Henry was almost nine, a bright, pleasant boy with his father’s dark eyes and brown hair. Emma’s husband Neal worked as a clerk in a firm of accountants, while studying for his own qualifications in the evening. They scraped by on his wages while Emma was in college, all three of them crammed into a tiny two-bed apartment, but they were happy, and devoted to each other. It gave Belle comfort to see that love could find a way, despite everything that life had thrown at them.
The beaming waitress set down her hot chocolate, and Belle sent her a tired smile, laying down her book and cupping the mug in her hands as she breathed in the promising scent of sugar, rich chocolate and cream. She was still studying, and while the bone-weary exhaustion of the early months of her pregnancy had gone, she still got into bed each night feeling as though she had been running miles while carrying lead weights. Her nausea had gone, at least; she had lost weight in the early months, and had struggled to gain it back. The baby was healthy, though. She had regular check-ups to ensure that. She was due in early May, and while she had mostly gotten everything she needed for when the baby arrived, she was scared witless. Emma had soothed some of her nerves, explaining in graphic detail what it was like to give birth and how she would likely feel in the early days.
Belle sipped at her chocolate, letting its sweet warmth run through her as she gazed out of the diner window. The sky had darkened, and the rain was heavier, dancing on the sidewalk and streaking the window with silver. People hurried by, umbrellas sending a shower of water to left and right or chins pushed into their collars as though that would keep them dry. She wondered if the storm would push north, up to Maine. She wondered if it was raining in Storybrooke.
Emma arrived just as she had finished her hot chocolate, a slim figure in a beanie hat and padded waterproof coat. She hurried into the diner, muttering under her breath about the weather, and pulled off her hat and scarf, shaking out her long blonde curls.
“Wow, this day blows,” she remarked. “Chocolate, huh? Wouldn’t say no. You want to split a brownie?”
“Sounds good.”
Emma gave the waitress their order, sliding into the chair opposite Belle and grinning at her.
“How’s it going?” she asked, and Belle pulled a face.
“Okay,” she admitted. “I have a mass of research to do before next week, so it could mean some late nights at the library. You up for being my study buddy?”
“Yeah, I could do with hitting the books too,” said Emma. “This criminology paper is kicking my ass. How about you come over for dinner, and we’ll head to the library when we’re done?”
“Count me in.”
Belle sat back with a sigh, rolling her shoulders, and Emma put her head to the side.
“Still no word from your dad?” she asked carefully.
“Well, I sent him a birthday present,” said Belle dryly. “Nothing. It’s like he’s pretending I don’t exist. I don’t know if he’ll ever want to even see the baby.”
Emma pulled a face.
“I know he’s your dad, honey, but - look, I gotta say it. He’s being a dick.”
“I know,” sighed Belle. “I haven’t really forgiven him for what he said to me when I told him, it’s just - he’s the only family I’ve got.”
She chewed her lip, feeling overwhelmed and anxious, and Emma reached out to squeeze her hand.
“And - and your ex?” she said gently. “I know things ended badly between you, but - but remember what Neal said last week? About not getting to see his son, about not being there for us? He still feels guilty about that, Belle, even now.”
“I know,” sighed Belle. “I know he thinks I should tell Alex, and I know he’s only trying to help, but my situation and yours just aren’t the same. You guys were separated because Neal was in prison, but there was never a question of you not getting back together. Neal wanted to be with you, and he wanted Henry.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know how your ex would feel,” said Emma. “He has a kid on the way, and he doesn’t even know it. Maybe he’d help.”
“I don’t want his help,” said Belle automatically. “I can do this myself.”
“Yeah, but maybe you don’t have to,” said Emma. “You could at least get some child support out of him.”
Belle ducked her head, feeling guilty and somehow mutinous, and Emma sighed.
“I don’t know much of what went on between you two,” she said. “But take it from someone who’s been there. Bearing a kid alone, raising it alone… it’s hard. The hardest thing I ever did, and Neal was only in jail for the first eighteen months of Henry’s life. I’ve had him to help out since then.”
“He doesn’t want me,” said Belle obstinately. “He made that very clear.”
“But maybe he wants this kid,” said Emma patiently. “How do you know unless you tell him?”
Belle tugged at her lip with her teeth, anxiety rising up within her as she voiced a fear she had been hiding since she learned that she was carrying his child.
“What if he does want the baby?” she whispered. “What if - what if he takes it away from me?”
Emma’s mouth fell open.
“You think he’d try to do that?” she said softly, and Belle shrugged.
“I think he takes what he wants,” she said bitterly. “I think he has money, power, influence, and probably a shit-hot team of lawyers. What chance does a single mother with a crappy apartment and no steady job stand?”
Emma squeezed her hand a little more.
“That won’t happen,” she said firmly. “You’re not spending your days taking crystal meth and banging half of Boston. You’re a good person, studying hard, with a respectable career in your future.”
“Which I’m having to put on hold,” said Belle gloomily.
“Which you might be able to pick up again more quickly if you just ask for his help,” said Emma. “Just - just tell him, Belle.”
Belle stared at the phone sitting on the tiny coffee table in front of her, a sleek black slug squatting by the flat pad of paper on which she had jotted some random thoughts, which she was hoping would act as prompts. We need to talk. I’m in Boston. I should have called. I was afraid. And then, at the bottom of the page, in an uneven scrawl that had been underlined with a shaking hand: I’m pregnant. She ran a hand over the curve of her belly where his child was growing inside her, chewing her lip. Her heart was thumping in her chest, and she tried to calm herself. Raising her blood pressure was a bad idea. For the hundredth time she wondered why she had left it this long, and could come up with no decent answer but her own fear.
He has a right to know, just bloody well call him, will you?
Fingers trembling, she reached for the phone. It would have been easier to pretend that she couldn’t remember his number, but that would have been yet another lie she told herself. It was seared into her brain along with the sound of his voice and the feel of his hands on her and the taste of him on her tongue. She dialled the number, listening to the ringtone and bouncing nervously on her toes. The phone clicked as someone picked up.
“Hello?”
The sound of his voice made her throat close up. She remembered how it had flowed over her like smooth silk as he whispered filthy things to her in the dark of the night, his mouth by her ear as he moved inside her. It had been different when she left: harsh and bitter, strident with pain. His accent thickened when he was angry, just as it did when he was aroused. It made her abdomen clench to remember it.
“Hello?”
He was impatient now, and she could understand it. This had been the third silent call she had made to him, after all. The third call in which an evil entity had slithered into her throat and stolen her voice, made her mute with fear and pain and unrequited love. She squeezed her eyes shut, tears pricking at them, and heard him sigh.
“Look, who is this?” he demanded. “Might I say that this silent treatment is extremely tedious? Any stalker worth their salt would at least try some fucking heavy breathing, or something.”
Belle pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob, her other hand tightening on the phone. There was silence for a moment, and then his voice, a whisper so quiet she could barely hear it.
“Belle?”
She tried to speak the words that were swirling in her brain, clamouring to be let out. I miss you, I love you, I need you. I’m carrying your child and I’m so, so scared. Her breath hitched, the words caught in her throat, hard and painful.
“I’ve made a note of the number that comes up on my phone,” he said coldly. “I don’t know why the hell you’re calling me, but this appears to be a waste of both my time, and yours. If I have any further calls from you, I’ll be forced to contact the police. Don’t call this number again.”
The phone clicked, and there was silence, terrible and deafening. Belle put down the phone, her lower lip trembling as tears welled in her eyes. Her courage had failed her. She couldn’t tell him the truth. She wouldn’t. Whatever hardships the birth of her child would bring, she would face them alone.
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