All Chapters of I Got Pregnant For The Wrong Twin: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

188 Chapters

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty One

SERENAThe hotel room felt wrong.That was the thing about being displaced. Even a nice hotel, even a suite on the top floor with views of the city, even the best sheets money could buy. It wasn't home. It didn't smell like home. It didn't sound like home. The walls were the wrong color, the windows faced the wrong direction, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw the front door standing open, the lock untouched, the evidence that someone had been where they shouldn't have been.Hope didn't understand why we were here. She kept reaching for her books, her blocks, the familiar toys we'd forgotten in our rush to leave. She kept toddling toward the door, expecting to find the living room, the kitchen, the backyard where she'd learned to chase butterflies. When she couldn't find them, she cried. Small, confused cries that broke something in my chest.Aiden spent most of the first day on the phone. Marcus, the police, the security company installing new cameras at the house. Eleanor, who h

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Two

SERENAThe bakery felt different when I walked through the door the next morning.Not the space itself. That was the same. The smell of sugar and butter, the hum of the ovens, the clatter of pans in the kitchen. But the feeling underneath, the thing that had made this place a refuge, a second home, a piece of myself I'd built from nothing. That was gone. In its place was the same wariness I carried everywhere now, the same constant vigilance, the same quiet fear.Lily was already there, pulling trays from the oven, her face flushed with heat. She looked up when I came in, and I saw her register the change in me. The way my eyes moved to the windows. The way I checked the corners of the room before I let myself breathe."You didn't have to come," she said."Yes I did.""You could have stayed home. Stayed safe.""There's no such thing as safe anymore." I tied an apron around my waist. "Not for me. Not until this is over."She didn't argue. Didn't push. Just handed me a mixing bowl and p

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Three

SERENAThe coffee shop was called The Daily Grind, a nondescript place on a nondescript corner in a part of Miami I'd never visited. According to Eleanor's file, Charles Whitmore came here every morning at 7am. Same table, same order, same forty five minutes of watching the world through the window before disappearing back into whatever hole he'd been hiding in.Aiden and I arrived at 6:30. We sat in the back corner, away from the windows, with a clear view of the door. Hope was with Carmen, who had agreed to watch her at the hotel despite the fear in her eyes. We'd told her it was just a meeting, just a routine check in with Marcus. We hadn't told her the truth. We hadn't told anyone the truth."Are you sure about this?" Aiden asked. His coffee sat untouched in front of him, probably cold by now."No. But I'm doing it anyway."He reached across the table and took my hand. "We don't have to confront him today. We could just watch. Learn his routine. Come back another time.""We've bee

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Four

SERENAThe police report took three hours.By the time we got back to the hotel, Hope had been fed, bathed, and put down for a nap by Carmen, who looked at us with eyes that held too many questions she was too polite to ask. I thanked her, paid her double, and promised to call if we needed anything. She left with a backward glance that said she knew something was wrong but trusted us to handle it.Aiden stood by the window, looking out at the city. His back was straight, his hands were shoved in his pockets, and I could see the tension radiating off him in waves."He grabbed you," he said. "In front of me. He grabbed you, and I couldn't stop it.""You did stop it. You pulled him off me.""After. After he'd already touched you. After he'd already hurt you." He turned to face me. His eyes were red. "I should have seen it coming. I should have been faster. I should have—""Aiden." I crossed the room and took his face in my hands. "You can't protect me from everything. You can't predict e

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Five

SERENAThe first night back in our house was the hardest.I thought it would be a relief. Thought walking through the door, seeing Hope's toys scattered across the living room, smelling the familiar scent of home would settle something in my chest. Instead, every shadow looked like a person. Every creak of the floorboards sounded like footsteps. Every time the wind rattled the windows, I reached for my phone before I remembered that Charles Whitmore was in jail, that the threats were over, that we were safe.Aiden found me in Hope's room at 2am, standing over her crib, watching her breathe."You should be sleeping," he said quietly."So should you."He came to stand beside me. Put his arm around my waist. "I keep thinking I hear things. The door, the windows, someone moving around downstairs. I know it's just the house settling. I know we checked the locks three times. But I can't stop listening."I leaned into him. "That's what fear does. It stays with you. Even after the danger is g

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Six

SERENAThe days that followed were supposed to feel like healing. Instead, they felt like waiting.I went through the motions. Woke up, made coffee, fed Hope, went to the bakery. Came home, made dinner, put Hope to bed, fell into bed myself. The routine was the same as it had always been, but underneath it, something was different. Something was missing.I couldn't name it at first. Couldn't figure out why I felt so hollow, so disconnected from the life I'd fought so hard to protect. The danger was gone. Charles Whitmore was in jail, awaiting trial, surrounded by guards and cameras and the kind of security that made escape impossible. Marcus had assured us that he wouldn't see daylight for years, maybe decades. We were safe.So why didn't I feel safe?Aiden noticed, because Aiden noticed everything. He didn't push, didn't ask, just watched me with those eyes that held too much understanding. He brought me coffee in bed, took over Hope's nighttime feedings, handled the calls with Marcu

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Seven

SERENAThe dinner with Rachel and Tom was supposed to be simple. Just neighbors getting together, sharing a meal, pretending that the past few months hadn't happened. But nothing about my life was simple anymore, and pretending had never been my strong suit.I spent the afternoon cooking. Not because I needed to impress them, but because I needed something to do with my hands. Something that would keep me from pacing, from checking the windows, from jumping at every sound. Aiden helped when he could, but Hope was demanding attention, crawling around the kitchen island, pulling pots and pans out of the lower cabinets with the single minded determination of a child who had discovered that the world was full of things she wasn't supposed to touch.By the time Rachel and Tom arrived at 7pm, I was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical labor. The exhaustion of performance. The exhaustion of pretending that I was fine when every nerve in my body was still humming with the m

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Eight

SERENAThe therapist's office was in a part of Miami I'd never been to before. Not the shiny part with the high rises and the expensive cars. The quiet part. The part where houses had porches and trees and the kind of old that couldn't be faked. Dr. Reyes worked out of a converted bungalow, the kind of place that should have been a home but had been turned into something else. Something softer. Something that felt like it was trying to put you at ease before the hard conversations began.I sat in the waiting room for fifteen minutes before she came to get me. Fifteen minutes of staring at the same painting on the wall, a watercolor of a beach that looked like it had been painted by someone who had never actually seen the ocean. The colors were wrong. The light was wrong. Everything about it felt like an approximation, a guess, a stab at something the artist didn't fully understand.That was how I felt. Like an approximation of myself. A guess. A stab at being a person when I wasn't su

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Nine

SERENAThe second session was harder than the first.I hadn't expected that. I'd thought that once I'd opened the door, once I'd let Dr. Reyes see inside the messy rooms of my head, the next time would be easier. But it wasn't. It was like going to the gym after months away. The first day hurt, but the second day hurt worse because your body knew what was coming and was already trying to protect you from it.Dr. Reyes started with a simple question. "How was your week?"I didn't know how to answer that. The week had been fine. That was the word I kept using, with Aiden, with Lily, with myself. Fine. But fine was a lie. A convenient lie, the kind you told when you didn't have the energy for the truth. The truth was that I'd woken up at 3am every night, heart pounding, certain that someone was in the house. The truth was that I'd checked the locks so many times that Aiden had started following me around with a look on his face that was half concern and half exhaustion. The truth was tha

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy

SERENAThe neighborhood barbecue was exactly the kind of event I would have avoided six months ago. Too many people, too many questions, too much performance. But Rachel had been persistent in that gentle way of hers, and Tom had promised good food and cold drinks, and Aiden had looked at me with those eyes that said he thought it might be good for me, so I had said yes.Now I was standing in their backyard with a paper plate in my hands and a knot in my stomach, watching Hope chase the twins across the grass while the adults stood in clusters and pretended not to watch each other.The backyard was nice. Not fancy, the way Eleanor Knight's parties had been fancy, with caterers and flower arrangements and silent judgments lurking behind every smile. Just nice. A grill, some string lights, a few folding tables covered in plastic tablecloths. The kind of party where people brought their own drinks and kids ran around barefoot and no one cared if you spilled potato salad on your shirt.I

...

14 15 16 17 18 19

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP