Unseen Messages(134)

Her shoulders tightened, the lines that etched her forehead returned, and she couldn’t keep eye contact. “It’s—I mean—I’ve wanted to tell you...but...I can’t.”

Tell me what?

My heart folded to my feet. “You’re...you’re not sick, are you?”

I couldn’t handle the thought of her leaving me, but I would go catatonic at the thought of her dying.

She could never die.

I forbid it.

Dragging her to the almost-ready-to-sail raft, I grabbed her by the hips and plonked her on the wooden (hopefully floatable) platform. “We’ll leave. Right now. We’ll get you medicine. Whatever you need to get better.”

Panic slicked my hands with sweat as I barked orders. “Conner, get rid of that octopus; we don’t need it. Grab the salted fish and smoked lizard. We’re leaving. Right now. Estelle needs help.”

Estelle’s lyrical laugh was the only thing that reached me through my stampeding frenzy. Her fingers slipped through my hair, pulling my face to hers.

Our lips connected.

Our tastes mingled.

My chaotic world found its centre once again.

Breathing against my lips, she murmured, “G...I love you. And I’m sorry for not telling you. It was wrong of me. But seeing you fear that I don’t want you anymore or panic that I’m dying...I can’t keep this secret.” Her lips twitched into a sad smile. “Besides, it’s not like I’ll be able to keep it a secret much longer.”

Pippa drifted closer; Puffin had magically appeared in her hands. “So...you’re not sick, Stelly?”

Estelle shook her head. “No, I’m not sick, Pip.” Something clouded her eyes. “However, I will need help from all of you in the coming months.” She sniffed back her own fear. “I can’t do this on my own.”

“Do what?” I murmured. “Tell me. I’ll do anything for you, Estelle. You know that.”

She smiled. “I do know that. Thank you, G. Just knowing you’ll be beside me is enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“To face that I might not make it but I have a much better chance with my family helping me.”

Might. Not. Make. It?

“What the hell, Estelle?”

Her index hushed my mouth, keeping me silent.

Her eyes blazed with green and brown confession. “I’m pregnant, Galloway. And I’m absolutely petrified.”

.............................

AUGUST

I spent the following month alternating between uncontrollable rage and inconceivable despair.

Once Estelle told me, it was as if a ten-tonne weight slid off her shoulders and landed squarely onto mine.

She slept better, ate better, and she no longer hid her growing belly behind Conner’s black t-shirt.

Her bikini revealed the little bump that, in ordinary circumstances would be hardly noticeable, but thanks to prominent ribs and hipbones, her belly was the only thing distended, increasing by the day.

I hated that bump.

I detested that bump.

But I loved it, too.

When we lay down to sleep, I traced the tightness of her skin, I massaged her lower back and made gentle love to the woman I’d given my absolute soul to.

Estelle was the reason I was still alive. And I’d condemned her to a potential death.

I hated myself.

No, I bloody loathed myself.

When she whispered that I could come inside her, that she was already past the need for safe sex, I lost it.

Couldn’t she see this wasn’t a joking matter?

I’d done this to her.

I should never have forced her to sleep with me.

And she wanted me to come inside her? The most incredible gift she could ever give me was given because I’d already taken everything.

The moment she’d said it, the mood was broken.

My erection turned flaccid with self-hatred and I left our bed to tear through the jungle to watch the sunrise on the other side of the island.

There, I went through so many emotions.

I prayed for a miscarriage before it was too late.

I bartered with God that I would never touch Estelle again if he somehow annulled the pregnancy.

I pleaded with the baby not to hurt its mother.

I threatened the little soul and cursed it to Hell if it so much as gave her bad cramp.

Amongst my loathsome terror, I also begged that he or she would be born safely.

That a part of Estelle and me would survive, blended for eternity.

I wanted our child.

I hated our child.

I wanted a baby.

I wanted to kill it.

I went through so many feelings that by the time I returned home, I was wrung out and bloody exhausted. I’d stayed away for the full day, only returning late that night when I was sure I wouldn’t dissolve into a cursing tyrant or, worse, melt into ridiculous tears.

Estelle was pregnant.

With my child.

Shared genes and bodies and souls.

This should’ve been the happiest few months of our lives.

Not the countdown for absolute disaster.

.............................

SEPTEMBER

Estelle’s birthday fell on the 17th of September.

That meant she’d already had one on the island, seeing as we’d crashed at the end of August. Had she remembered a year ago? Or had the crash deleted such superficial events from her short-term attention?