{UNEDITED}

        As we pulled up outside Scarlett’s house, it was smaller than I imagined it would be. I don’t know why I thought it would be bigger, I guess it’s just because there are more of them than there is of Matthew and I, even our house is bigger than this.

        At the front, there was a small garden which had been surrounded with a wall, built to keep a child in its boundaries judging by the height of it and the complexity of the gate lock. The front door was red with the number eighteen branded in the middle of it and there were only three windows which were visible, one at the bottom and two at the top.

        I knocked quickly on the door as Matthew closed the gate and appeared beside me, his hand finding mine as he gave me a reassuring squeeze. I had done what I did best for the entire journey, which was worry that Scarlett wasn’t going to like me now and that she wasn’t going to like Matthew either since she had assumed Braydon was the father of the baby.

        “Chloe. It’s wonderful to see you again,” Scarlett grinned as she pulled the door open and, without warning, she embraced me in a hug before turning her attention to Matthew. “You’re not Braydon though.”

        “No, this is Matthew, he’s my boyfriend and the father of the baby. Braydon was just a friend who came along for support,” I smiled, stepping to the side slightly, watching as Scarlett checked Matthew from inside her house. He wasn’t going to attack her and he wasn’t dangerous, so I don’t know why she was looking at him like he was about to murder her and her entire family. He was an idiot, but he wasn’t that much of an idiot and the thought had probably never crossed his mind either.

        “Braydon talked like he was the father of the baby,” Scarlett replied after a moment.

        “Yeah. He does that,” I sighed. I felt bad for lying, but Braydon hadn’t bothered with me since that day at the hospital when he disappeared and didn’t bother telling me where he was going. He ran at the first sign of trouble and hid when it got even the slightest bit tough, so he wasn’t going to be any use to me when the baby arrived if that’s how he was going to react to everything.

        I would be lying if I said I wasn’t pissed with him for simply vanishing. I know he had a hard time accepting everything which had happened, but I didn’t expect him to be as cowardly as he was. He didn’t even make it into the room before he was turning and running for his life, telling me he couldn’t do it.

        “I am guessing you’re Scarlett. Chloe told me about your conversation and I think it’s great that there is someone there to help her through this, someone who really understands and can point her in the right direction,” Matthew spoke up with a smile on his face. I was amazed that he hadn’t let Scarlett’s judgemental behaviour put him off wanting to be there, he just took what she did and ignored it.

        He had certainly become something different in the last month, but it wasn’t anything to do with me because I hadn’t done anything to help him. The change which people are noticing is solely down to him and whatever is going through his mind right now, he even told Lydia it was over between the two of them because he had more important things to worry about.

        She wasn’t impressed when she discovered that I was the more important thing which he was worrying about and I can only imagine how she would react if she ever realised Matthew was the father of the baby I was carrying. She would have spent two months attempting to guess the truth when, for the entire time, it was under her nose and she was simply too stupid to realise that.

        “I know what it’s like to go through pregnancy this early in life. If there is anything I can do to help, then I would be more than happy to do so,” Scarlett said, her eyes narrowing as she glared at Matthew once again.

        “I get the impression you don’t like me very much. Is there a reason for that?” Matthew asked with a chuckle.

        “You don’t like the type of person who is going to stick around, that’s all, you like the person who is going to run the moment things get tough,” Scarlett said bluntly. I couldn’t believe she just said something like that to a guy she doesn’t even know, she is making assumptions based on what she thinks she can see but she doesn’t know how damn wrong she actually is.

        Braydon was the one who ran. Sure, Matthew ran in the beginning, but he had been there for me for the last month and not once had he tried to run. Not even when I told him to leave and let me get on with it like I had been doing, he just laughed and carried on with his day as though nothing had been said between the two of us.

        “If you understood how tough things were right now, you would understand that I’m not going anywhere. I am here for the long run,” Matthew stated, unfazed by the looks Scarlett was giving him and the comments she was making.

        “Is that Taylor?” I asked, spotting the child who was grinning at me through Scarlett’s legs. He had brown hair which was long enough to cover the top of his head but not quite long enough to reach his ears, his blue eyes were immediately noticeable and he had one hell of a smile on his face. “He’s so cute.”

        “Come here baby. Come and say hello to Chloe,” Scarlett smiled as she knelt down so that she was on an even height with Taylor. He pushed himself from the ground and walked towards his mother’s open arms, the smile never once faltering even when Scarlett picked him up and showing him to the two of us on the other side of the door.

        “Hello Taylor. Aren’t you gorgeous?” I smiled.

        “This is Chloe. Say hello to her,” Scarlett encouraged him.

        “Hello,” he giggled from Scarlett’s arms and I couldn’t help but smile at him again. That could me when our daughter was born, showing her off to the world and showing her the people who mean the most to me, encouraging her to say hello to them. It was the first positive thought I had had in a while and I could fall asleep with that image in my head tonight, the image of me holding my daughter and listening to her giggle in pure happiness.

        “Anyway,” Scarlett started speaking, pausing only to put Taylor back on the ground and watch him run back into the living room shouting at his daddy, “I don’t see what could be tougher than an unplanned pregnancy when you’re both teenagers.”

        “Try an arranged marriage by a barbaric father who doesn’t give a damn about his daughter or his granddaughter,” Matthew blurted out. I could have hit him there and then, I didn’t want to go round telling everyone the reason I was getting married and neither did I want to tell someone I had only met the once before.

        “I am going to kill you Matt,” I muttered under my breath, making sure to call him Matt because I knew how much that pissed him off. He hated being called Matt, not that I understood why because I preferred that to Matthew, either way I only ever called him that when he had really annoyed me and this was one of those occasions.

        “Sorry, but I will not stand here and be judged by someone who had only just met me. She doesn’t know the first thing about me and she still thinks she has the right to pass comment on the type of father I am going to be,” Matthew defended and, just like that, the Matthew that I knew so well was back. “I will give our daughter nothing but the best.”

        “I know that but that still doesn’t give you the right to go round telling people our private lives,” I snapped.

        This was the first time I had really lost my temper with him, but he deserved it and I didn’t even care right now. He didn’t have any right to tell people what our lives were really like and neither did he have the right to snap at people in the manner that he did, regardless of how much they were annoying him and he wanted to tell them the truth about his thoughts on them.

        He was doing well until Scarlett had to bring up being teenage parents. That was tough but, when you’re dealing with an arranged marriage and a control freak of a father at the same time, it only makes it a millions times more difficult to deal with. I had considered murdering my father, hiding his body somewhere, just so I didn’t have to go through with this marriage but then I remembered that murder was illegal and I would face a lot of prison time.

        His suffering would make me feel a whole lot better but he wasn’t worth the time in prison, not when I had a baby on the way who was going to need me as it grew up. It needed someone to protect it from its own family and that was part of my job as a mother.

        “Look, I’m sorry for the comments I made, I didn’t realise,” Scarlett said, breaking the awkward silence which had fallen after I gave Matthew a glare which warned him not to say another word. “So, you’re having a little girl then?”

        “Amanda Jodie Jenkinson. She is going to be a daddy’s girl,” Matthew smiled at the mention of his daughter. It was like a sudden anger relief for him, the mention of his sweet and innocent daughter.

        “Taylor is a daddy’s boy because daddy always gives him what he wants,” Scarlett laughed, her hands suddenly appearing on her stomach and a smile remained on her face. “He’s kicking. Hurts like a bitch at night but it’s worth it in the end.”

        “Another boy for you then?” I asked.

        “Yeah. Dean has already decided that he’s going to be called Andrew since I got to pick Taylor’s name.”

        “I didn’t even get a say in the name. Chloe told me what it was going to be called and I had no choice but to agree,” Matthew laughed to which I lightly punched him on the arm. I was still mad at him but he was making it hard to stay that way when he kept smiling at me like he always does, that smile which says ‘I was an idiot, please forgive me’ and I always end up doing that. Forgiving him.

        “You love the name,” I shrugged uncaringly.

        “It’s a pretty name. I am sure that, with parents like you two, she’s going to be one hell of a looker,” Scarlett smiled and I couldn’t help but laugh. I had never been called ugly, but I wasn’t what you would consider pretty either, I would call myself average at best.

        If this baby ended up attractive, then it would all be down to Matthew. She would have got those genes from him since I don’t possess an attractive gene in my body, but I wasn’t going to argue with her because I was tired with the arguing now.

        “Anyway, it was lovely meeting you Scarlett, but we really must be going now. Appointment with the father,” Matthew laughed.

        “Would you two like to come over for dinner tomorrow night? I would love to introduce you to Dean and, Matthew, we could start again like we never met today?”

        “It saves me from cooking. What time?” Matthew replied before I had the chance to even say anything. I was surprised by his response, I thought he would have told her where to go after what she said about him, but apparently he was willing to give her another chance to prove herself and show him she wasn’t a total bitch.

        “Half eight?”

        “Sounds great to me. See you then,” Matthew replied and then walked out of the garden, heading towards the car with a satisfied grin on his face. I don’t know whether being proud of him for being the bigger person was allowed or whether I shouldn’t be feeling this way, either way I was proud of him for being the better person and agreeing to see her again.

        “I’m sorry for the way I reacted, it’s just that Braydon has been--“

        “Wait? You’ve spoken to Braydon?” I asked, the question coming out louder than I planned it to, but I was shocked at the revelation that she had been speaking to him when he didn’t want anything to do with me right now.

        “Yeah. He told me about Matthew and how much of a player he was, that he didn’t give a damn about the baby and he was only with you so that he could leave you when you were at your most vulnerable,” Scarlett said. I could feel my blood reach boiling point as she told me that, I was so angry that he had gone behind my back and done that when he hadn’t even given me the time to properly explain the situation.

        “Matthew isn’t perfect, hell no one is perfect, but I am damn sure he’s not like that. He has a past just like any normal person does, but for the last month he has been at my side and has been there for me. Braydon, he just ran, the moment it got just a little tough, he ran and he left me alone,” I replied, keeping my anger level as low as possible giving the situation of the moment.

        “That’s not how Braydon painted it for me. He told me that he was there for you during the scan and that it was the happiest moment of his life, he even said he was with you at the scan you had today,” Scarlett shrugged and I couldn’t help but laugh. Braydon had to have been stupid to think I wouldn’t find out what he had been up to behind my back, a complete bloody idiot.

        “No. My first scan ended with a huge argument and my father telling me he was making preparations for a wedding I had no idea about and, as for this scan, Matthew was with me. He was totally speechless when he saw our daughter for the first time and I could see the happiness in his eyes,” I continued to laugh though the only thoughts going through my mind were all the ways in which I could hurt Braydon without being sent to prison for it.

        “I will apologise properly tomorrow. Matthew seems like a good guy and I’m sorry that I even bothered to listen to Braydon, it’s so obvious now that he was full of crap,” Scarlett smiled.

        “He is a good guy,” were the last words I said before I turned my back and walked over the car, giving Scarlett a quick wave I got into the passenger’s seat and breathed out a huge sigh of relief. I looked down to see that my fists were clenched and I had managed to draw blood from the palms of my hands, something I didn’t even realise I had done because I didn’t even realise that’s how angry I was feeling.

        I didn’t want to see anyone right now. I just wanted to sleep until I had forgotten about all of this ridiculous drama, sleep until I could wake up and do what I wanted to do, without being told that I was doing it wrong or that there several ways in which I could improve. Hell, I wanted to wake up in a world where my thoughts and judgement were constantly clouded by Matthew bloody Jenkinson.

        “Your father called. He said we have to meet him half an hour, something about picking out your wedding dress and my suit, as well as telling him who you want your bridesmaids to be,” Matthew said quietly.

        “I don’t care. If I see that god forsaken excuse of a father, then I am going to end up doing something stupid. Just take me home,” I muttered.

        “But--“

        “And I don’t mean my home, I mean our home,” I interrupted him before he could say another word. I just wanted some time where I wasn’t worried about my dress or where I wasn’t thinking about how the venue was going to look or where I wasn’t imaging my life as a married woman or where I wasn’t panicking about everything going wrong.

        I just needed some time alone so I could clear my thoughts and think properly.

        “Our home?”

        “Yes, Matthew, our home. I already have the keys to it,” I half-smiled.

        “How? I didn’t think we were allowed to move in until after the wedding.”

        “We’re not. I stole the keys and have been slowly moving my stuff in with the help of Jason,” I laughed. For the last week Jason and I had been sneaking my things from one house to another, and neither of our parents had noticed, they were too busy in their own little worlds to have taken any notice.

        The last time I heard from my mother was to tell me that she was working on the invites, based on the list my father had given her. She also told me that the venue was going to be full of Matthew’s friends and family, while I was going to have pretty much no one there to support me – that’s only because both my parents hate all of the people I happen to know or be friends with, so my father banned them from the wedding without even bothering to ask me.

        “I think we have earned some time alone. The wedding outfits can wait,” Matthew said and all I could do was smile at him as he drove us towards the outskirts of town.

        I knew my father was going to be pissed with me but that was a thought I could live with. It was about time he got a sense of what I was feeling and tried, for once in his pathetic life, to actually understand me rather than criticise me.