There was another side effect to the press publishing those pictures. Within hours I went from ‘mystery woman’ to ‘Dalia Adler’, so not only my friends and family knew, but the entire city.They found my Instagram also, and my amount of followers skyrocketed. I was nowhere near Kiara or Robert, but I was already getting Dm’s from shady c

I headed out just a bit after dinner. I left Clara in the care of my mom and headed down to the car. Apparently, no one had told the driver that Robert didn’t want to see me, so he responded the same as usual when I texted him the address.I don’t know if they told Robert whenever I was coming over, or if he received a notification when we passed his gate. I kept a wandering eye on my phone screen throughout the car ride, though I already knew that I would ‘accidentally’ not see it if he called or texted me on the way over. Oops.

Clara was taking everything like a champ. We had our own little cubicle, three blue screens separated us from the rest of the emergency room. She was laying on a big hospital bed, which she thought was very exciting, and pointed out every doctor that came by.They had to run several tests, mostly related to blood work. She cried when they poked her with the needle, but smiled when she received a Princess Peach bandage over it. The doctors and nurses were all very kind to her, one even sneaked her an ice cream. popsicle. It made being in the emergency room in the middle of the night a lot easier

It was the summer’s second heatwave and it did very little to improve my state of mind. I didn’t want to be here. I did not want to have to hear the baby’s heartbeat again. My bed at home was calling to me, if it was just another night I might have already fallen asleep by now. “Tired?” Doctor Ward noted. “All the time.” I answered truthfully. He wrote it down on the clipboard in the typical unreadable doctor’s handwriting. “You’ll start getting some more energy at around week fourteen.” He reassured me. “Only a few more weeks left of the first trimester.”And what a first trimester it had been. I had already lost hope that I would relax throughout this pregnancy, instead I was just focussed on surviving it. When my mind wasn’t a mess it seemed like my life stepped in to make sure that it would be. I brushed my fingers over the b

I put my hand over the weird pain. It was on my right side, on my bump. It only lasted for a few moments before it subsided. My mom sat down on the couch and grabbed the remote, but Clara and I stayed in our spot. The child protective services lady had told me that either my mom has to go or Clara will go and live with Max and Liann. She was pregnant too now, and I just knew that even if she was forced to live there, they wouldn’t take proper care of her. It would be a full on Harry Potter scenario, she would be nothing more than their slave.I looked down at Clara. Her blonde curls were a mess, her eyes were wide and looking at me now, rather than our bitch of a mother. I had tried to kick my mom out, and it didn’t work. So there was only one option now. I picked up Clara and headed into our bedroom. I sat her down on the bed and closed the door behind us. It was a little past midnight now, but the two of us were wide awake. I gave her a