Chapter 4

Maya POV

I put Axel in his crib and turned on the baby monitor before I left and closed the door of the room. My guests would be arriving soon, and I still had to make dinner.

That day Axel had gone all foursome, probably knew that from the next day I would start working and so he asked for maximum attention today.

I stretched and looked at myself. I had my shirt still dirty with vomit and sweatpants, so I decided to go to the room and change.

I opted for a pair of black leggings and a tight T-shirt. Fortunately, after childbirth, I was able to lose most of the pounds I had taken in pregnancy and those that remained were proportionate in the right places, so I did not complain much.

Brad would object to that too, he didn’t like the bodies a little round, he loved perfection, maybe that’s why he didn’t love me.

I was finished tying my hair when the bell rang.

They were an hour early, strange for Jess. The girl I knew loved to wait for hours.

I ran to open the door so they wouldn’t ring again, I didn’t want Axel to be woken up, even if he would soon wake up again for his evening feedings.

I ran to open the door and immediately I was wrapped in a damp and warm embrace.

Jess almost squeezed me and didn’t let me breathe.

\"Where the hell did you disappear to, Sheppar? I’ve been waiting for your calls, but you never did! I spent years wondering if it was my fault or not!\," she said in tears as she crushed me.

\"Jess, I can’t breathe.\" I complained as Lucas smiled behind her.

\"You deserve it!\" said my old friend.

\"It’s not your fault, Jess. The university kept me busy, then the internship then the job, the scholarship, I no longer reflected on anything.\" I said, returning the hug and smiling at Lucas.

\"Don’t stand at the door, let’s go in, it’s cold.\" I said, inviting them into the house.

Jess finally left me and entered followed by Lucas who, as soon as he closed the door, dragged me into a vise, kissing me on the head. Jess looked at me from head to toe, making an appreciative sound.

\"Holy crap, Sheppar! Andrew wasn’t kidding when he said you were hot as s**t!\" Jess said, \"Lucas, look at those legs and tits! Where did you get them!\" she chirped cheerfully.

\"Please, Jess, be quiet.\" I begged her while she opened the bags and pulled out two bottles of wine.

S**t.

\"You’ve even made my boyfriend drool! I’m surprised you’re not back in town with at least two men after you!\" She kept screaming and putting the wine on the table.

\"Jess!\" I said scolding her, but it was too late.

The baby monitor broke a desperate cry that required my attention.

My friends gawked at me, \"Maya...\" they said in chorus.

I lifted a finger asking for a moment and I rushed to Axel’s room where I found him kicking and screaming in his blue jumpsuit, his red cheeks and eyelashes wet with tears.

He stretched his arms toward me and immediately took him in my arms, snuggling him on my chest as I returned to the kitchen.

Jess and Lucas sat on the stools and watched me walk in with my wad in my arms.

\"Sheppar, tell me you’re babysitting to round up your salary.\" Lucas said as I sat down.

\"Jess, Lucas, this is Axel Sheppar, my son.\" Jess opened her mouth to scream but I admonished her with my eyes and she immediately closed her mouth.

\"How?\," she asked more cautiously.

I raised my eyebrows and looked at her How do you think it happened? I asked her with my eyes.

\"No, I mean, ooooh I don’t know!\" she said exasperated.

Axel grabbed my shirt, reclaiming what was his again and I discovered a b****t to breastfeed him.

\"Now I understand the huge boobs.\" Lucas said admiring Axel’s voracity as he ate.

\"They’re not that big.\" I said cradling him.

\"I guess wine won’t help,\" Jess said when she took the bottles off.

\"Are you here alone?\" Lucas asked cautiously.

I nodded as I passed a finger on Axel’s soft face, which finally calmed down.

\"Alone?\," said Jess.

\"He didn’t want to know. We had been together for years and when I told him he accused me of wanting to bind him to me, he told me to get rid of him. So, I told him to f**k off, and I kept going on my own. He never looked for me again nor did he care when, on returning from maternity, I found a letter of dismissal ready for me.\" I said looking up at them.

\"Oh Maya.\" Jess said, approaching with caution and sitting next to me to look at Axel.

My little boy had his blue eyes open, and he watched as he kept on sticking to his n****e and eating quietly.

\"He is the idiot. How it is possible not to want a wonder like that,\" Jesse said as she stroked Axel’s face, he shook his lips, almost as if he were flirting with my friend, and continued to drink quietly.

\"I don’t know.\" I admired looking at my baby.

\"No one is like you.\," said Lucas with admiration \" No one would have the same courage.\"

\"He was already part of me, I couldn’t get rid of him, it wasn’t just anything, he was my baby. I didn’t care about anything else. I canceled the application for medical school and continued to work in the hospital until I had to go on maternity leave.\" I said while Axel, with his stomach full, detached himself from the b****t.

\" And the hospital just fired you? For no reason?\" Jess grabbed Axel’s hand while he was hiding his head in the hollow of my neck.

I nodded.

\"Do you know that they are criminally processable?\" said Jess seriously.

\"God no, stop it.\" Lucas began.

\"They can’t fire a single woman on maternity leave! You can sue them!\" said Jess.

\"They were cutting staff, and I was one of many victims. But I don’t care, I worked in the same hospital as Brad, and seeing him every day would have been torture.\"

Axel extended his arms to Jess, who immediately grabbed him and began to cuddle him while I rearranged my shirt.

\"Shall we order Chinese?\?" asked Lucas taking the phone.

\"God yes.\" I answered as Jess rubbed her nose against Axel who cheerfully clung to my friend’s blond hair.

\"He loves the attention, he loves the eyes on him, especially of women, he took it from Brad.\" I said observing him.

\"But eyes aside, it’s your loose copy, you know?\," said Jess as she kissed him.

\"Luckily, he has the same eyes as my father, I don’t know if I would not be able to collapse if he were the same as Brad.\" I said with some regret.

Axel slept blissfully in Lucas\' arms. Jess had exhausted him, she had not left a moment and he had enjoyed all the attention of the woman but at that moment he was asleep quietly, with his head resting on Lucas’s chest, the pacifier between his lips.

I laid the empty bowl of my lemon chicken and leaned on the back, picking up my legs under my butt and looking at my son.

\"You could have called me May May, I would have come all the way to New York to kick that idiot’s a*s.\" Jess said without looking away from Axel, she was in love.

\"I met Brad at nursing school, and I immediately fell at his feet, honestly speaking I don’t even know how I got noticed by him. He always said he wanted to live with me after school, to want to get married, and to have kids. When we started working, he was making excuses to postpone until I found out that the extra shifts he was doing, were spent in the restroom banging the other nurses.\" I confessed bitterly, \"Despite that, I forgave him. I loved him too much and I didn’t want to lose him. When he found out I was pregnant I thought he would like it and instead, he freaked out. He accused me of being a W***e and getting banged by every PhD student in the hospital and he say that probably he wasn't even his kid, but I wanted to frame him because nobody wanted me. He almost destroyed my apartment that day. So, I left him and continued with my life, I went to work, and he crossed me down the hall almost every day, but he did not care in the least about my condition or Axel\'s, he thought more about flirting with any pair of b****s in front of him. Honestly, I don’t even know what I really found in him.\"

\"Oh May May.\" said Jess holding me in a hug \"He’s an idiot and he doesn’t deserve you, he never deserved you and he doesn’t deserve your son.\"

\"When I had the chance to leave, I left and I was more than happy to leave NY, I was terrified that one day he could appear out of nowhere and claim his rights on Axel.\" I confided to Jess returning the hug, trying to hold back the tears.

\"What?!\" Lucas shot, \"He can’t do that! He gave up his rights!\" he stroked Axel’s back.

\"If he had signed a court order in which he claims to waive all rights to his blood, yes, otherwise not. He can claim his rights as a parent when he wants.\" said Jess.

I was shaken by the shivers of terror, only the idea that he could approach Axel provoked a sense of devastating nausea.

\"May May quiet, okay? I’ll talk to Dad and we’ll figure something out so that it doesn’t happen okay?\" said Jess stroking my cheek.

\"I can’t ask you.\" I said with a hint of voice.

\"Shut up, Maya, you’re my best friend and I do what I want.\" Jess shut me up.

\"You better do what she says, it’s getting worse with time. Andrew is terrified of her and every time her name appears on the display, he interrupts everything and answers.\" Lucas said.

\"Andrew loves me, it’s not true what you say.\" Jess replied, showing me the left hand on which a solitary beauty stood out.

\"Really?!\" I said euphorically, grabbing her hand and looking more closely at Andrew’s beautiful engagement ring.

Jess nodded with dreamy eyes and began to tell me everything I had missed in those years, and it was as if nothing had changed. As if time had never passed for us, it was like when we broke up after high school.

Before he left, Lucas took Axel to his crib, insisting on it, and then he invited me to his birthday party that week and made me promise that I would bring Axel as well since he was his godfather.  By that time, Jess had intervened and said that she was going to be the godmother and they had begun to discuss. When I closed the door behind them, they were still fighting.

Just like five years ago.