chapter 131

chapter 131
Isabella's POV.

The hotel room was too quiet. It was the kind of silence that pressed against my ears until I could hear my own heartbeat pounding so hard in my chest, it was uneven and very heavy. 

I sat on the edge of the bed as I held the thin blanket in my hands, staring at the wall like it could answer the questions I had in my head.

Was I selfish for living? Or was it selfish to stay knowing fully well I was silently breaking apart inside of me? 

Nothing about the hotel felt like home to me but that was the point? Wasn't it?. I didn't want comfort. I wanted distance. I wanted to disappear. 

I pressed a hand against my stomach which was still flat. There was still no visible sign of the secret I carried, but I knew about the secrets and that knowledge burned me from inside out.

Declan would never know.

I raised my knees up to my chest as I rocked my body slightly so that I could try to cheer up my mood but the more I tried. The more the tears flowed down my cheeks in streams that I couldn't control. 

I bit my lip to keep myself from crying out loudly. The walls were so thin and so close to each other that I didn't want anyone to hear me crying and decide to check up on me because I didn't want any pity from anyone. 

I had written everything in my journal before I left. My goodbye, my reasons, and my love. I wondered if Declan had found it yet, or if he even cared to read it.

Maybe by now, Sabrina was massaging his shoulders again. And as for Ethan, maybe he was laughing in the hallway, while Declan was already too distracted to notice the hollow space I had left behind.

My phone was on the table and the screen was dark. It was completely useless without a SIM card because I had broken the SIM card into two pieces. I recalled that when I was trying to break it my hands were shaking so badly that I almost couldn't break it.

That was the hardest part. Because it meant me severing all ties with the one thread that could pull me back to him. I told myself that I wouldn't regret it but right now regret was all I felt.

A knock on the door made me flinch as my body instantly got tensed and my heart began to race in my chest. For one wild second, I thought it was him. That he had tracked me down and found me here.

“House keeping.” I heard a not so familiar voice speak from outside. It was a hotel staff and I swallowed hard.

“No, thank you.” I replied as the hotel staff walked away.

I stood up and paced around the room. The floor was cold under my feet, the window showed me nothing but the busy street. People moved like ants as they carried on with their daily lives. And here I was, hiding and suffocating in ways I couldn't bring myself to explain.

At that moment my stomach felt disturbed and I rushed to the bathroom. My knees dropped to the floor as the nausea hit me hard and I felt bitterness down my throat.

I grabbed the toilet bowl as tears welled up in my eyes and I vomited all my contents into it. Then I stayed there until the sickness passed, and until my body gave me permission to move again. 

I was pregnant and I already knew about it. The word echoed in my mind like a curse and a blessing all at once.

I rinsed my mouth and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes were red and swollen. I barely recognized myself because I looked like someone who had lost everything. Maybe I had. 

The sounds of children playing drifted in through the window. The sounds were muffled but sharp enough to pierce me as Ethan's laughter surfaced in my memory. That innocent little voice that called me aunty. He had looked at me with so much trust in his eyes and now I had also abandoned him too.

I fell to my knees once again and I sank to the bathroom floor, pressing my hand to my mouth to stifle the sobs.

“God” I whispered with a cracked voice. “What am I doing?” I asked but there was no answer. There was no one to respond to me, it was just the sound of my broken heart.

I forced myself back to my bed as I crawled under the blanket, like it could protect me from the weight of the world. I closed my eyes but sleep wouldn't come. 

My mind replayed everything and the look on Declan's face when he called me baby. The way his arms felt around me, the warmth of his chest against my cheek.

I wanted that again. I wanted him again. But then I remember Sabrina's hands on his shoulders and his silence as she leaned into him. He hadn't pushed her away and he hadn't said no to her. And that image cut me deeper than anything else.

I told myself leaving was the right choice and that I was saving myself from any more heartbreak, which I couldn't bear to take. That I was saving the child growing inside of me from a world of half love and endless jealousy but deep down inside of my heart I knew the truth. 

And the truth was I was running because I was scared. A knock on the door startled me again but I didn't answer this time around and whoever it was went away when he or she didn't get a response from me. And one more time I was left with the silence of my room. 

I reached for the table and grabbed my ATM card. I would need cash tomorrow and maybe a new phone. Maybe I would need to go to a different city where Declan wouldn't be able to find me. He wouldn't even think of looking there. 

But even as I planned all of it my chest still ached so badly. Because a part of me wanted him to find me. I wanted him to fight for me, how to break every wall that I had built and to drag me back into his arms. 

And that part of me hated the rest of me for leaving. I laid down back on my bed and pulled the blanket over my head as darkness swallowed me whole. My body trembled and my breath was uneven and then I whispered to the emptiness inside of me.

“I love you, Declan. But this is a goodbye from me to you.” I said as the words felt like a knife in my throat.

I pressed my hands against my stomach as my tears soaked the pillow.

“You are never going to know. He's never going to know that you are mine. Only mine.” I whispered to the tiny life inside of me and for the first time I realized how truly alone I was after Declan wasn't in my life anymore.