And like this, months go by. We meet, we spend time together and then we part. One fine Sunday morning, I wake up with my head resting over Kai’s chest and find him gazing down at me. “Good morning, love.” It’s the same way he greeted me the morning before. I could see myself waking up to this greeting forever. His voice was rough with sleep, but his eyes were tender. I thought I saw something in them, something I had never seen a man look at me with. It reminded me of how my dad looked at my mom. “What time is it?” Kai chuckled. “I love the way you talk. All your expressions are laid out on your face,” he commented. My heart thumped because for a moment, I thought he was going to say something else. But this was close enough. “You’re crazy,” I said, hiding my flushed face against his smooth chest because I was positive he could read me like a book. He mimicked me, placing his hands under my arms and lifting me to him.

The sun poured in through the windows of my bedroom. The rays landed on my body and warmed me. What a poor substitute they were for his arms and the warmth I had felt when I spent time with him. I held the blanket tighter around me, burying my head under it and praying silently that morning hadn’t arrived. That it wasn’t time to face another day. If the nights were long and I could sleep more, I would be blessed with feeling nothing. Maybe I could go back to being the old Lily, the lost who had never lost so miserably in her life. The alarm blared and I sat up straight away. A strange sensation started at the pit of my stomach. It gradually made its way up from my gut, into my chest, and then my throat. All at once, the contents of my stomach threatened to come up the way it went in. I covered my mouth and jumped out of my bed and prayed that I made it to the bathroom. I heaved and every last bit of my food left me. After a couple of minutes, I finally held m

He, then, proceeded to push past me into my apartment. I watched with mild horror as the President looked around my room with a small but smug smile on his lips. “I have to say… If Kai really knows you and wanted to meet you, why didn’t he just come over to your place? Why hide you so tightly and sneak you into his room? It seems he doesn’t put in much effort to meet you. What do you think is the reason for that?” he questioned. The seed of doubt had been placed in my mind long ago, and this just made it fester. I willed myself to not let it overtake my rationality. I pushed down the humiliation that seeped through me at his barbed dig. “Please, Mr. President. I need to speak to your son. As you said, it’s a matter of urgency.” His father huffed. “Urgency,” he repeated coolly. “May I ask what is so urgent?” My jaw ticked with frustration. “As I said, it is personal.” “Personal,” his tone was biting. It made the word sound like an obsce

It was the morning of my first sonogram. I nervously looked up at the ceiling as I lay on the cold exam table. My dad and my friend Brittany bounced in their seats. I rubbed my stomach absentmindedly. It had only just started to show and a smile crawled into my lips as I felt a faint flutter.Brittany chuckled at that. “Oh, I saw that. That right there is a football player.” She rubbed her own stomach. She, herself, was pregnant and we had bonded over it.“Brit!” my dad chuckled. “We don’t know if it is a boy or a girl.”We laughed until the doctor walked in and greeted us.“Well, Lily, are you ready to see your baby?”She turned on the ultrasound machine and shot out a cold jelly over my stomach. She rolled the device over my belly with gentle pressure.My heart thumped rapidly as I took in the black and white screen and expected to struggle. But it wasn’t. She could see it clearly

When my water broke one morning, I was home alone. Dad had gone out to the next town for the farmer’s market, sure that I needed organic products freshly picked from the farm to have a smart baby. Brit and Ken were at work. And I had no one else who I really spoke to during my pregnancy.The due date was three weeks later and I was the one least expecting it. Terrified, I called them.Dad was as calm as ever. “Right. Hold that baby in for a few hours, Lilith.”I snorted in response.“I’m serious,” he said. “It is going to take me time to get there. Did you call the others?”“No,” I said immediately.“Do you want to call them? Brit and Ken should be at work…”“I am not making any more calls,” I growled.“Got it. I will call everyone. You take care until I get there.”.Dad got us to the hospital in ten minutes and