Page 102 of Break Me

Tomorrow, I’ll feel like myself again.

I let myself close my eyes for just a moment. His arm tightens around my waist, his breath steady and warm on my neck.

The world goes quiet as sleep comes for me.

Samuel

She’s still asleep when I wake.

That isn’t unusual. What is unusual is how deeply she’s gone. Her body is curled in on itself, knees drawn slightly higher than usual, her breathing slow and deep.

I ease my arm from around her waist, slow enough that the mattress barely shifts. Normally, she’d stir. A soft sound. A hand reaching back for me without thinking.

Today, she doesn’t.

Sitting there for a second, I watch the rise and fall of her chest, the faint crease between her brows smoothed away in sleep. She looks peaceful.

I tell myself it's because she hasn’t stopped all summer.

Raven didn’t just move in. She transformed the whole place. Every room bears her touch. Thrifted pieces chosen carefully, not for perfection but for feeling. A chair she refinished herself. Lamps that cast the kind of light she likes. Small things that shouldn’t matter but somehow do, until the cabin felt lived in. Ours.

The window boxes were her idea, too. Flowers she fussed over every morning, coaxing them into bloom. And the garden out back, rows she laid out herself. So many evenings I’d come home to find her hands in the dirt.

Raven doesn’t know how to half do anything. If she decides something matters, she gives it everything she has, even when it costs her more than she admits.

That kind of work would wear anyone down.

That’s all this is.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand. The room is dim, early light just beginning to filter in through the curtains. When I come back from the bathroom, she’s shifted, turned more onto her back. One hand rests on her stomach now, palm spread like it landed there on instinct and decided to stay.

The sight stops me cold.

Pregnant.

The thought comes without warning. There’s no panic or disbelief. Just a quiet click of recognition, like something I didn’t know I was waiting for finally sliding into place.

It would explain a lot.

The way she moved last night, a fraction slower than usual. The way the tiredness seemed to hit her all at once. The way she leaned into me afterward, like her body had run out of argument and decided to trust me to hold the rest.

I stand there watching her breathe, watching the small, unconscious flex of her fingers against her skin, even in sleep. A protectiveness settles over me. The thought of her carrying my child fills me with a quiet, unexpected peace. I

It feels right.

Reaching for the blanket, she murmurs something under her breath but doesn’t open her eyes. Careful not to wake her, I pull it higher over her before I leave the room.

In the kitchen, I start the coffee and lean against the counter while it brews. The house is quiet, and I move through it without turning on many lights, already adjusting without thinking.

I’ve seen this before. Not personally, but enough to know the signs. The fatigue. The way a woman’s body starts making decisions without consulting anyone else. Raven’s never been one to complain, never been one to dramatize discomfort. If something feels off, she smooths it over and keeps moving.

I decide that I’ll bring it up when she wakes.

Steam curls from the mug as I take a sip, barely tasting it. My mind keeps drifting back to Raven in the bed, to the hand on her stomach. To the idea of her carrying something we created.

The thought roots itself in my heart with a fierceness that surprises me. A love so strong already there for a life that isn’t aware of me yet.

I set the mug aside and start pulling things out of the fridge. She’ll need breakfast. Something light. Something she won’t have to force down. Eggs. Toast. Fruit she picked herself from the tree out back. I move quietly, keeping one ear angled toward the hallway, listening for any sign that she’s stirring.