Gianna had known that leaving everything behind would be hard. That it would be a big adjustment. She just had not appreciated how much of a struggle it would be.
The morning after she had lulled herself to sleep by pretending Nico was there. She had awakened bright and early, her entire body aching. She had showered and headed out. Stocking up on food, buying a few more clothes to change into, toiletries and a duffel bag. All the while trying to keep a low profile despite all the eyes on her. "Haven't seen you around these parts before, are you new?"
An old woman, who had clearly known Gianna was not from the town and had just been fishing for gossip had asked. It had briefly crossed her mind to pretend like she did not speak English. But she had dismissed the idea, it would take too much effort.
"No ma'am I am not from around here. I am just passing through," Then when it looked like the woman was waiting for her to say her name, Gianna had told what was probably the worst lie in history.
"Oh no! I left the stove on, I have to go," She had left the old woman were she stood, sputtering and gone to pay for her things.
Job done she had returned to her motel room, where she was now spending most of her days. Only going out to the grocery store when she absolutely had to and at times when she knew it would most likely be nearly empty.
Motel life did not agree with her. Or more specifically it did not agree with the precious cargo she was carrying.
In her life Gianna had slept in places worse than the motel. For one, it was not infested with rats bigger than dogs. It was not crawling with roaches and the water looked like actual water, not muddy goo. And it had an actual roof, not just a piece of tarp over it to keep out the elements. All things that should have made the place more than habitable, but the baby vehemently disagreed. And was not shy about using Gianna's body to let her know how much.
After the first night where she had slept long and deep, weighed down by exhaustion and comforted by her own little white lie. A good night's rest had become a thing of legend for her. She tossed and turned through the night, not able to get comfortable no matter what she did. She worried about everything and nothing. How long until her money ran out? What if Nico found her? What if the baby did not like her? What would she say when the baby was old enough to ask about its father?
When her thoughts got lost in a spiral she listened to the world outside, drowning them out. From time to time there would be doors opening and closing. Some of the other tenants coming and going. The old pipes creaking, the wood right alongside them.
She knew when the pimply teenager who worked the front desk when the old man was not there came. She could hear her old car coming from miles away. The ancient hunk of junk grumbling every step of the way, metal rattling like it was about to fall apart at any moment.
These were all things Gianna was sure someone, probably the town gossip (the old lady she had met at the grocery store came to mind), would be interested in knowing. But she was not that person, she did not care what the people in the small town got up to. She would rather have been sound asleep than listening to things she had no business knowing.
In addition to sleepless nights, another not so wonderful facet of pregnancy had finally revealed itself…morning sickness.
And it had taken great joy in teaching her something new…morning sickness did not just happen in the mornings. Morning, noon, night and all the hours in between, the urge to hurl reigned supreme.
Early morning, an hour or two after finally managing to close her eyes, Gianna would be up and running, sheets tangled around her legs as she headed for the bathroom, the fabric nearly sending her to the floor as she kicked it off.
Soon after breakfast she would back, hunched over the porcelain throne. Lunch and dinner the same thing repeated. She would eat something, overwhelmed by the need to have it, and have it in that moment or else. But the moment it hit her stomach, her body would decide it did not want it anymore. In some ways it was worse than the bug that had gotten her back in the city. When she has been sick with that, she had felt herself getting better as the days had progressed. But with the morning sickness it was like things were only getting worse.
So preoccupied with throwing up and not being able to sleep, Gianna had not even had time to plan a way forward. She had been gone for two weeks and she still had no plan. All she had to show for her stay in the motel was loose fitting clothes and protruding bones.
The never ending sickness worried her. If she kept throwing everything up, how was she supposed to have enough nourishment not just for herself, but for the baby too. So far the only way to quiet her nausea was by having some ginger. She now had ginger ale and ginger cookies always on hand. But most days the nausea got the best of her before she could eat them.
Something needed to change, and soon, but she had tried everything she knew. And then spent hours online looking for possible solutions.
The closest she had gotten to an answer was a blog talking about the effects of environmental changes on pregnant women. She had clicked the link hopefully, only to have her mood dampen the further down she had read.
According to the article, moving could be stressful and have a negative impact on gestation. But rather than give her something concrete she could try, they had talked about the importance of a father during such times.
The article had talked of foot rubs and cuddles. Of how soothing a father's scent could be.
She had spent the rest of the day in a miserable pile of blankets and cookies. Thinking of Nico and the way things used to be. Of how easy it had been between them, of the time before her truth and his had been revealed. Have my heir, he had said, and when she had miraculously conceived, she had automatically thought that meant she would be in the child's life. How she wished she could go back to that ignorant time.
Would it had been different, she had wondered if both of them had been honest from the start. That train of thought had been enough to kick start an epic crying fit. The kind that had her whole face hurting, her eyes stinging. Every breath she took feeling like it was not enough, like she was suffocating.
She had emerged from it more drained than when it had begun. Since then Gianna had stopped searching for a cure.
However long the morning sickness lasted, she would endure. She just had to get through it and everything would be fine, just fine.
To tell herself otherwise would be opening a Pandora's box she had no way of closing again.
She missed Nico so bad, it felt like a physical ache. Like someone had ripped out a piece of her and forced her to keep walking like nothing had happened. But she had been the one to walk away, the one to run.
Seeing Nico again would mean never seeing her baby again after it was born. And while she could live without Nico, painful as it was. Gianna did not think she could survive having her baby taken from her. A bundle of cells she had never met and she already loved her child above everything, even her own happiness.