I felt my nose sting and tears burned my eyes as I typed. I let the loneliness of missing him wash right over me then. I thought once we were back from Australia things would settle down and we’d get ourselves back into the routine we were in before the wedding. Back then, we’d often meet up straight from work for dinner, but we hadn’t done that in a long while. I felt as though I was just expected to sit around and wait for him to be free so we could see each other. We were newlyweds, shouldn’t I have been at the top of his list, his priority? Or did thinking like that just make me selfish?
I missed him. It was that simple. I wanted what we had when we were sneaking around behind my brother’s back. I wanted the nights out in bars and museums, theatres and art galleries. I wanted to drink too much and sing karaoke in front of people we didn’t know. Instead, all I seemed to do was sit at home and wait for my husband to remember I even existed. It didn’t help that Sasha was working all sorts of overtime so that she could take four weeks off over Christmas to go to Australia and spend time with Shain. That made it so I had barely seen anything of her over the last month, apart from the odd text, we’d hardley had a single conversation. They’d been working at keeping a long-distance relationship going, but I wasn’t sure if it was gonna work. Perhaps that was just me being selfish—again—and wanting to keep her all to myself, but we’d had a couple of nights out with him while I was over in Australia, and it was only then I noticed how much of a flirt he was and how often his head was turned when a pretty girl walked by.
Aussie Husband: We have one more conference call, and then I should be home. I think we may have won the contract. X
That really was good news, and I let out a breath that loosened the knot in my stomach. The business had been busy the last few weeks, and Liam had been putting together a proposal to supply oil rig workers to offshore platforms around Australia. Once again, because of the time difference, it meant a lot of late nights and early mornings; hopefully, this would now be the end of it.
Me: That’s fantastic. Shall I order some takeaway? X
My phone rang thirty seconds later.
“Hey, bub, sorry, I didn’t realise I was gonna have this long to talk, otherwise I would’ve just called in the first place.”
“That’s okay, it’s just good to hear your voice.”
“What you up to?”
“I’ve just finished my pole dancing class, so now I’m off to the strip club to put my moves into practice.”
I could hear him speaking to someone in the background.
“Sorry, gotta go, bub. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Love ya.”
The call cut off before I could reply.
“Love you, too,” I said anyway, reminding myself that I shouldn’t get upset.
My phone vibrated while it was still in my hand.
Aussie Husband: Don’t worry about takeaway. Mel just arrived with Chinese. X
Yeah. Of course she fucking did.
Good ol’ Mel!
I sat up and my head spun, making me feel sick. I wasn’t sure if it was the speed with which I moved or rage that caused it, so I stared into the fire for a few long moments and took a few deep breaths to calm myself. When I was sure I wasn’t going to throw up, I stood and made my way to the kitchen. Since I was eating alone . . . again, I made myself a milky hot chocolate and two slices of Nutella on toast. Then, I headed up to bed with the book about sparkling vampires everyone was raving about and fell asleep reading it sometime later.
I had a vague recollection of Liam pulling my back into his chest and the smell of alcohol invading my senses at some stage during the night, but I woke to an empty bed in the morning.
Feeling thoroughly pissed off, I decided to take the pregnancy test alone.
“Well fuck him, I’ll do it by myself.” I said aloud to my empty house as I sat up and attempted to swing my legs over the side of the bed. Just as my feet hit the floor, white light exploded across my vision and a blinding headache caused the room to spin. I squeezed my eyes closed and pressed my palms to my temples as my stomach rolled and my mouth started to water. A cold sweat broke out over my face and my whole body felt too hot.
I sat very still on the side of my bed for a few long moments and waited for things to settle. My headache receded to just a dull ache at the base of my skull, but I still felt nauseous. Opening my eyes very slowly, I stood, grabbed by phone, made my way over to my underwear drawer, and pulled out the home pregnancy test hidden there.
The instructions were easy enough: pee on the stick, slide on the cover, and set it down on the side of the sink. I followed them, then washed my hands and set the timer on my phone for two minutes. I forced myself to watch the seconds count down instead of spending the time staring at the plastic stick. As the timer hit the two-minute mark, I had a moment of panic. I shouldn’t have done this. I should’ve waited until Liam was here, this was big news, we should be—
My phone rang, and I actually let out a small squeak as I jumped at the sound. Sasha’s name was on the screen, but I knew I couldn’t talk to her. She would be all too aware that I was up to something. Plus, I was a terrible liar, or faker, whatever I would be doing if I were to pick up, so I sent the call to voice mail.
My insides felt as if they were twisting themselves into knots as I debated what I should do.
Tea!