Could I bring on a miscarriage through natural means?

Or would I kill myself before the baby had a chance to?

In a bottomless moment of weakness, I plucked a leaf from one particular bush that’d given me wicked cramping and held the foliage to my mouth.

So close.

It could all be over.

I touched my bottom lip with the bitter flavour but at the last second, threw it away.

I didn’t want to die.

So why would I be so stupidly reckless when I had a chance (a very small chance) of surviving this birth? Besides, how could I possibly think of killing something created from love?

I wasn’t that person. I would never be that person. Even if it meant sacrificing myself.

Striding from the forest, I never considered forcibly removing my mistake again. In fact, I made a pact to stop thinking about it so I wouldn’t drive myself insane.

All month, I managed to avoid the topic, and some hours, I even forgot. That was until I brushed my breast and flinched because it was so sore. Or I touched my stomach and the strange tightness in my belly felt alien.

It seemed like only yesterday that Galloway had thrust inside me in the tide. And yet a month had passed and already nature prepared my body for its disastrous conclusion.

I only had a few months left to live. I had no illusions that I would survive such an ordeal (skinny and stranded) and deliver a healthy infant.

But my body didn’t share my acid-like hopelessness. My hips gradually ached, my skin became overly sensitive, and my taste buds changed their craving.

I’d never read up on pregnancy and what to expect, and there was no way of doing it now. The only thing I could do was what I’d always done: turn to my music.

I scribbled and composed my way out of terror.

But then something even worse happened.

Worse than crashing.

Worse than becoming pregnant.

My pen ran out.

The ink ran dry.

I had no way to soothe my jagged soul and make sense of this abhorrent tribulation.

My pen was dead.

I had no more.

And that was it for my notebook.

Chapter Forty-Eight

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G A L L O W A Y

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JULY

“YOU MUST THINK I’m stupid, Stel.”

She looked up from weaving yet another flax blanket (damn woman was obsessed with them) and hid behind a curtain of hair. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I growled beneath my breath. “Seriously, Estelle? You’re honestly going to play that card with me? After the past few weeks of moping around and refusing to tell me what the hell is eating you? I’m done. I want to know. Right now.”

“G...don’t.” Her eyes flickered to Pippa and Conner, who sat on the log tenderising the octopus I’d caught this morning. We’d learned (as we caught more) that the best way to eat the suckered creature was to smash the tentacles until they were tender; otherwise, it was just too damn chewy.

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do this.

I’d been patient.

I’d slept beside her at night. I’d tried to comfort her. I’d waited with all the bloody love I could for her to tell me.

But she never did.

And it grew harder and harder every day.

She was hurting, goddammit, and she wouldn’t share the reason why.

“I’m through waiting.” Throwing away the axe (where I’d been chopping excess vines from the almost-finished raft), I stood up and towered over her. “You barely look at me anymore. You don’t let me touch you. You never let me watch you undress. What the hell is going on?”

Please, don’t tell me it’s over.

Don’t tear out my heart and tell me you don’t want me anymore.

I’d done my best to psychoanalyze if I’d done something wrong. Had I pissed her off? Did she hate sleeping me with me? Had I taken advantage of having a willing, beautiful woman share my bed?

She often joked that I was insatiable, but in return, she was too.

It wasn’t just me who initiated what happened between us.

Yet I felt like the one being punished.

Running a hand through my long hair, I snapped, “Tell me. Right now. If you’re through with me, just say it!”

Pippa stopped smashing the octopus, her hands falling silent as her face filled with worry. She hated when we raised our voices.

Estelle gasped. “What? How could you think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know? Perhaps it’s because you can’t stand the sight of me anymore. You barely laugh. You’re so bloody closed off I feel as if I’m living in a damn fridge around you!”

I stabbed myself in the chest. “If I’m not worth your affection anymore, Estelle, you damn well better have the balls to say it to my face so I can get on with my useless piece of a life and not constantly wonder what I did wrong.”

Estelle and I didn’t fight often, and if we did, it was defused as fast as it took to move whatever it was that annoyed us or obey the certain chore we’d ignored (normally me on that one), but this time, I couldn’t calm down until Estelle gave me what I wanted.

An answer.

That’s what I bloody want.

“Tell me. Do you hate me? Did I hurt you?” I paced, unable to stand still. “I told you I’d never hurt you, but if somehow I did, I’m so bloody sorry. But you can’t keep punishing me like this. You can’t shove me out of your heart just because you don’t like me anymore.”