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As soon as she saw my car, she ran to me, and I opened the door and got out so that I could wrap my arms around her and let her bury her face in my chest.
“There there,” I said, stroking her hair. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here now. Why don’t we go back to my house? I have another good movie waiting there for you and you can take as much time as you need to tell me what happened.”
“Okay,” she said with a sniffle, but she didn’t let go of me just yet. Instead, she stayed there for several more moments before finally letting go and sliding into the passenger seat.
“You did the right thing by calling me,” I said, getting into the driver’s seat beside her and reaching across to squeeze her hand. “I’ll make sure you’re okay, I promise.”
“Thank you,” she said with another sniffle, and then burst back into tears. I squeezed her hand tighter and pulled out into the road, heading back home.
I had doubts in my mind over what I was going to do, but I knew that I had to find a way to fix this. In this kind of situation, I had to be there for her. Otherwise, what kind of a boyfriend would I be?
Maybe I couldn’t make it all better, but I could at least stand by her through it all. That was the kind of man that I wanted to be for her. That was the kind of friend, the kind of boyfriend, she seemed to need at the moment, and I was more than happy to fulfil that role.
We got back to my house and I helped Bernadette out of the car, not wanting to ask what had happened until the two of us were safely inside and I could get her seated on the sofa to talk to me.
I shut the door behind us then guided Bernadette to sit down, sitting down next to her and squeezing her hand tight in mine.
“Do you want me to get you anything?” I asked. “I could warm up some food, or make you some tea, or popcorn, whatever will make you feel better.”
She shook her head, wiping away a stray tear. “No, I think I need to get things out.”
It took her a second to speak again, and I could tell that she was trying not to sob.
“It’s all right; take your time,” I said. “There’s no rush at all, so take as much time as you need.”
“Thank you.” She nodded, and this seemed to calm her down quite a bit. Then she took a deep breath and began to tell me what happened.
“I know I’m stupid for doing this—so very stupid—but I was tired of lying to her, you know?”
“It’s okay Bella, no one said you were stupid.”
“But I am,” she choked out. “I mean, I could have avoided this for a while longer. But then I told her that I was pregnant and what…what happened. She made it sound like it was all my fault.”
“Woah, slow down there,” I said as she burst into a fresh wave of tears. “Listen, Bella. While you may have made some stupid decisions, that does not make any of that your fault. A lot of people coerced you, pushed and pulled you to get to that point. You were drunk, you didn’t know what was happening. That was not your fault.”
I rubbed her back as I spoke, hoping that the familiar and repetitive touch would help to continue to calm her down even more.
“But it feels like my fault, and she…she said…”
“Bella, she was angry, and it wasn’t right of her to say those things. That does not make it your fault, nor does it make it your responsibility to deal with your mother when she’s like this. Listen, you can just stay with me for a while. I promise that everything is going to be okay.”
She looked up at me with wide eyes. “Do you mean it?”
I pressed her to my chest, inhaling her scent and hoping that mine was a comfort. “Of course, I mean it. You’re my best friend. And now my girlfriend, too. I’ll be with you through thick and thin, no matter what. You can always count on me.”
She pulled back for a second to look at me. “Thank you. I really mean it. You’re such a big help when it feels like everything is crashing down around me.”
“I know, but it’s not always going to feel like that. The fact is that your mother would have had to find out about this sooner or later. Maybe it’s better that it happened this way, so she has more time to come around. She loves you a lot, Bella, and I have no doubt in my mind that she’s going to realize that she’s made a mistake and apologize for it. In the meantime, the two of us can spend some quality time together. I’ll take care of you.”
She looked down at her hands, as if ashamed of what she was about to say.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do about that. I think she wants me to come running back to her because I didn’t even have time to grab anything. All I have is my phone, my wallet, and my keys.”
“Okay, then we have a few options,” I said. “Option one, you march back in there and grab your stuff. Option two, we sneak in to grab your stuff. Option three, you just let me have an assistant pick up the things you might need, and we call it a day.”
“But you’d have to buy me all new things.”
“So? I told you that money is no object to me, Bella.” I kissed her forehead. “Especially if it means your emotional wellbeing. I don’t want you to worry about confronting your mother if you don’t have to.”
