Thirty But Seventeen Novels & Stories

Everything in our home revolved around her, as if she owned the house. Recalling my bitter past, I wanted to slap myself. Why didn't I just walk away when I still had the chance? Andrew slammed on the accelerator. As if something had just occurred to him, he frowned and muttered, "Well played, Jovana. No wonder I haven't heard from you in three years—you've been out there messing around with some other man." Watching him clench his jaw in anger, I wanted to slap him across the face. A blind, heartless scum like him had no right to accuse me!

“You only turn thirty-seven once. And thirty-seven calls for dancing.” I glance over her back, finding all my nosy siblings watching our exchange. Ugh. It’s times like this that I wish I could have been an only child. Returning my attention to Layla, I sluggishly lift a shoulder. “I’ll be thirty-seven for the next three hundred and sixty five days. And then, guess what?” She leans in, gaze riveted on mine. “What?” I lean closer, too. “Then, I’ll be…thirty-eight.”

“Or maybe he just wanted to give you a graceful way to hand it to someone who actually wants it.” “That's not what this is,” I say. But I don't actually know that. That's the terrible part. “Thirty days,” Vera says, standing, smoothing her skirt. “I'll start clearing my calendar for the transition. No hard feelings, Sera.” There are hard feelings. There have always been hard feelings. I don't say so. I just watch her go, heels clicking against the hardwood, and think, distantly, that I have never wanted to win something as badly as I want to win this.

The next few days were strange. We were tender with each other careful not to press too hard on the bruise forming between anticipation and loss. We talked about logistics. Dates. Time zones. We laughed more than necessary, like laughter could preemptively soften the ache. But underneath it all, something churned. One afternoon, I found myself staring at an old photo on my phone. Seventeen-year-old me. Seventeen-year-old her. Her arm slung around my shoulders. My smile reckless and unguarded. We looked like people who hadn’t learned yet how much loving could ask of you.

” she shrieked. I buried my hands in my hair. I had seen the results earlier, but hearing it come out from someone’s mouth loudly made it so much real. Of course, a mistake that occurred without protection or anything comes with consequences. And now, here I was, facing one. Suddenly, flashbacks of signs that I should’ve noticed before hit me all at once—how I had become easily irritable, how the perfume that I loved so much before since I was fifteen suddenly made me gag, how Amara’s cooking doesn't feel appetizing anymore, and how my seatmate in work annoyed me more than usual.

A family of three. The photos were arranged neatly in chronological order, from maternity shoots to his one-month celebration, all the way to Cody’s second birthday. As the so-called mother who had raised him for three years, I didn’t have a single proper photo with him. My entire body trembled as I stared at Dorian. "Three years ago, in the delivery room… The child I gave birth to… Where is that baby?" Dorian didn’t dare meet my eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed. His voice came out dry.

She enjoyed the peace and quiet of the house and the fact that she could actually hear herself think in contrast to her shared apartment back in college where she couldn't go a second without hearing a squeal or an “oh my God, he's so hot." Her roommate has been fangirls of any and every hot boy band on the planet and it wasn't like she judged them or thought she was better than any of them. As a matter of fact, she loved them dearly and all of them stayed like sisters. It was just that she had passed that phase and those years were behind her now. She has been forced to grow up after the incident happened. Sarah in the past had been wild. She had spent the better years of her high school be

Their third born. #THE END#