Page 31 of Die for You

But I certainly feel different.

I suppose I should be relieved that my strange behavior is linked to my hormones.

But I am not.

How can I be?

I can’t bring a child into this world.

Myworld.

I wasn’t taught to be a mother.

I was raised to be a killer.

Nausea threatens to take me down, but I’m so used to it, I close my eyes and wait for it to subside. Once it does, I place my hands over my flat belly and look at my naked reflection in the bathroom mirror.

How is this possible?

This doesn’t feel like a gift.

This is a curse.

With a mother like me and a father like Lenny, this child is bound to be evil.

But when I think about her conception and how she was made with nothing but love, I wonder if maybe she’s not a curse, but a miracle instead.

I want to protect her and give her the life I never had.

But how is that possible?

She will be subjected to the horrors of my life and the dangers that face me every single day because of my actions, which led me here.

I now have a little someone depending on me to keep them safe when I can barely keep myself safe.

Cupping my belly tighter, I quash down the tears because I won’t give her the life I had. I will try my best to be the mother I never had.

She was unplanned, and this throws a huge curveball my way, but I’m all she has. I know what it feels like to be unloved and question your worth, so I vow here and now that I won’t do that to myangioletto.

“Lettie,” I mumble under my breath.

It seems perfect as it’s in the same vein as her father’s name—a father she’ll never know.

My little angel has a name.

I’ve been alone my entire life, but no more.

Lettie is a part of me.

And she is a part of Lennon.

It’s impossible not to love her.

Guilt swarms me because Lenny has a right to know that he’s going to be a father. But how do I break this kind of news when we’re not speaking? The last time we saw each other, he made it clear that our reunion, whenever that may be, would not be a happy one.

But would this change things?

Maybe Lettie will reunite us, and we could be one big happy family.