Chapter Four - The Unwanted Bride

Natalie's Perspectives

The similarity between my legs and gossip is that they spread real fast whenever Jake is concerned.

In the beginning, they were quiet. They were in the back of lecture halls, lockers, or filler in the cafeteria, but they grew legs; they will follow you. Everyone knows that when you're the girl engaged to Jake Lawson, they stick to you like glue.

"She must have trapped him."

"Probably faked the pregnancy."

"He's too good for her, anyway."

"She probably drugged him cause no way in hell she suddenly becomes attractive."

"Even a homeless hobo won't have sex with her despite how drunk he was."

"She is so ugly. Let's hope the father's gene's save the child."

"She looks like something you should throw up on."

All my life, I learned in keeping low, pretending as if I couldn't hear all of that. But then came days when claws sprouted out of those whispers, and no one would save me from pretending.

Eddie noticed such every time.

"You are not going to hide in your room the entire weekend," he said that Saturday, blasting into my space like the hurricane of a friend he was. "You are coming with me to the mall."

"I don't need anything," I told him, tightening the blanket around my shoulders.

"You're pregnant, Nat. You need everything. The first is clothes that fit you. Maybe even some baby things. You can't just keep pretending this isn't happening. And by the way, you weren't this shy when Jake was inside of you, pouring them babeee in."

I sighed and stared at the ceiling. "People will stare."

"They're already staring," he said, squeezing my hand. "But they'll have to get through me first. Come on. I won't take no for an answer."

—

The mall seemed to hum alive by even my small standards. Bright, polished floors; pretzel and perfume hanging in the air; couples walking hand in hand, kids yanking their parents behind them and laughing all around.

He tied my hand with his directly like a shield. "Ignore them" he said just like that when I stiffened under the pressure of curious stare.

Us at the inside of boutique were rows over rows upon rows of tiny little onesies and pastel blankets. It gave me a heart squeeze just to look at it. Eddie nudged me toward a silly little shelf displaying baby socks small enough to fit into my palm.

"You smile," he teased.

"I didn't." I bit my lip, but warmth clogged my cheeks. Just for a moment, I pictured folding these socks into drawers, wrapping my baby in soft cotton, creating this world with him—just me and him.

But that was shattered with one glance at him.

Jake.

He stood across the atrium, tall, careless, untouchably handsome. His arm draped around a brunette, who laughed loud and bright, her hand on his chest as if it belonged to her.

My chest tightened.

Jake's eyes brushed over me, just a flicker of a memory, then he looked away, tightening his hold on the girl and steering her away from me.

He didn't even blink.

Muffled laughter brought me back to the present. A group of girls from campus had been watching. One loudly whispered, "Look at her face. Pathetic." Another added, "He'd rather be seen with anyone else than his fiancée."

Heat rushed up in my cheeks, burning me alive.

Eddie saw it all. And Eddie snapped.

He slammed the baby blanket he had been holding into the counter and stormed straight up to Jake. "Hey, Lawson!" His voice snapped like a whip. Heads turned. "You seriously going to act like she doesn't exist?"

Just a handful of seconds passed. Eddie turned to me, ready to add more words, but Jake froze, left me behind, and with the full force of confidence he could muster, away he went from me. The brunette cozied up next to him, all smirking like she'd just won some sick lottery ticket.

"Ain't no fools!!" Eddie called then at him cutting through, so to speak, the muzzled chatter of the mall. "You hear me? You're a damn coward!"

Gasps rippled around us. Phones were drawn, people recording. My humiliation was complete.

I wanted to vanish, dissolve into nothing right there. Instead, I gripped the shopping bags tightly, almost to hurt my palm with the handles.

Eddie returned, cursing a fair amount beneath his breath. "Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable." He draped his right arm protectively around me. "Come on. We are outta here before I put my fist through his perfect face."

We paid at the register in tense silence. The cashier's fake smile seemed to wane even in its effort to avoid my gaze. Eddie glared at her until she threw the bags across the counter.

Outside the mall, the girls who had earlier been whispering sauntered past us with their bags dangling from their manicured fingers. One of them smirked and said, "Well, I guess money can't buy dignity, huh?"

Eddie lunged forward, but I caught his sleeve. "Please, don't," I whispered.

He stopped, jaw tightly clenched, then turned back toward me. His voice softened. "You don't deserve this, Nat. Not the whispers, not the looks, and definitely not him. Jake Lawson doesn't get to define you. You hear me?"

I nodded, even though my eyes were burning.

He sighed. "Stay here. I'll grab the car. Two minutes, tops. Don't move."

—

Smell of asphalt rain and petrol parking lot, with distance comes, hearing traffic sounds through clear air. I stood at the curb of the street, brooding my shopping bags into my chest, keeping from crying.

It will be fine, I told myself. Eddie wouldn't be long. Just breathe.

Then—screech.

A shrill noise of skidding tires. I turned my head.

An unkempt black SUV surged backward from its position, shaking like a beast in chaotic fury. The driver's head sagged agonizingly against the rolled-down window, a half-empty bottle glimmering in his impotent hand.

I could feel my blood freeze.

He is drunk.

The headlights lit my way as they appraised me; the SUV roared backward, too fast, too close. I was frozen to the spot, fear cementing my feet to the ground.

Someone screamed. Maybe it was me.

Everything else faded away to a jumble of noise and bright lights, the grinding of metal against concrete, the growl of the engine, and the roaring panic in my chest.

There was no time to move. No time to run.

Just a horrid realization: it is going to hit me.