How can I tell him the truth? Oh god.
“Alex...I don’t know how to—” I stop when I hear the thrum of a car engine and the crackling sound of the wheels against the sand. Alex doesn’t look happy, but he drops his hands, using one to link our fingers as we watch the Jeep drive into one of the empty parking spaces. I slip on my Converse shoes, ignoring the sand digging into my toes as we walk over. My mum gets out of the car, sunglasses resting on top of her head and her blonde hair plaited over her shoulder. Wearing a white tank top, jeans, boots and a beige jacket, she reminds me of the few photos I saw of her. All my memories are jagged in my mind now; each one feels fake now I know the real truth, and I hate that she has taken that from me.
“No god here to protect you?” Alex coldly asks my mum.
“You wouldn’t hurt me, because I am Annie’s mum and—”
“You don’t get to call me that anymore. My name is Anastasia. Only Phoebe—you know, the baby you left—calls me that,” I snap, interrupting her. “And Phoebe calls me Ana more often than not because she can’t stand to say the nickname as it reminds her of you and me. Bethany told her it. It reminds her you are gone...but oh wait, you aren’t.”
“I understand you are angry, but I wondered if you would come with me on a small trip into the city,” she asks, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Not alone, she isn’t,” Alex coldly replies.
“I would never hurt Anastasia. I’m her mother,” she pleads. “I just want to talk.”
“You hurt me when you left!” I shout at her, and she flinches like I slapped her. Holy crap on a cracker, pregnancy hormones are making me a little angrier than usual. I don’t even want to hurt her. She might have left us, but I’m not a nasty person. It takes me more than a moment to calm down, and I realise my hand is shaking in Alex’s, and his eyes are watching me in confusion. We have known each other a long time, nearly spent every day together, and I love him, and he loves me. And Alex knows something is wrong, something is different, other than my parents. I can see it reflecting in his eyes, and for a second, all I want to do is escape. To escape the truth.
And unfortunately, the only way to escape right now is with my mum. A small part of me wants to hear her side of the story, to get her alone and to see if this was all her idea, like I had planned to do. The same part of my heart fears how quickly she could crush me like a bug with only a few words. “I will come with you.”
“Are you sure?” Alex questions me, but he doesn’t stop me like he would have done when we first met. I love that we have both gotten to the point we can trust each other in our decisions. It makes me feel guilty for not telling him about the pregnancy yet, for hiding a really big part of our future because I’m scared of the reaction. Hell, I don’t even know who the father is. I’ve been with each of my guys, some more than once, in a short amount of time. Could any of them be okay with that? I lean up, kissing his cheek and letting go of his hand in the same moment.
“I’m sure. I can handle her,” I firmly say. Alex looks reluctant to let me go, but he does step back and let me walk with my mum to the car. I get in the passenger side as mum gets in the driver’s seat and does up her seatbelt. I do mine before she starts the car and reverses us out.
“If you have any plan to hurt me or my guys—”
“Your dad always threatens first and thinks about it later. I see you have inherited that quality,” she says with a sigh, turning the car around and driving us up the gate. It opens up for her to drive through, and there is an awkward silence in the car for a twenty-minute drive down the beachfront, past the full streets of familiars. I want to ask how many familiars live here, but I end up not saying a word as we get to a car park. Mum gets out and I follow, shutting my door behind me. “Come on, I want to show you some place that is special to our people, and I can explain everything. I’ve waited for this day for a long time.”
“How did you know you’d ever get to this day?” I question her as I move to walk at her side. She doesn’t answer me as we head down a wooden deck to a spherical statue that has glass in the centre of it. Frozen inside are hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny little dots that look like raindrops, but they are dozens of different colours. The glass catches the sunlight, reflecting it onto the white stone floor surrounding the statue. The multicolours look so pretty, like a million rainbows scattered all over the ground. As we get closer to the statue, I see the stone circle has hundreds of thousands of names carved into every inch of it, and flowers are engraved, lining the floor in another circle.
“Our people believe that all life is born more than once and there is a circle of life. Death is not the end, it
