Jailbird

~Part 2: Chapter 5~

~Two Months Later~

Okay, I really couldn't hide it any longer.

My hands rubbed my stomach in soothing circles and I watched in awe as tiny thuds pressed in the places my hands had touched.

My baby kicked all the time now,  as I was healthily starting to come to the end of my second trimester. I was six months today and I was kinda smaller than average, but I had had to start avoiding physical contact from my mother and David to keep the secret going this long.

I'd run out of the house most days feigning to be running late for work. Too late for breakfasts where they could scrutinize me under their gazes. And after work I'd always be with Elise until I knew they'd both be in bed.

I had to admit, just dodging them was exhausting.

Laying in my bed now, with Ziggy curled up under the bottom of my belly and baby kicking away, I knew I had to come out of the pregnancy closet.

Just laying on my side, I looked huge. I actually couldn't believe how long I'd gotten away with hiding this.

Truth of the matter was that my parents were stressed and I was starting to think that their marriage was having a rocky ride the last few months.

I hadn't talked to Zedlin, because he hadn't called me. I admit that it hurt, but knowing him, I knew he was distancing himself from me on purpose.

He still didn't want to let me in and now it made me more skeptical of my plan to come clean when I gave birth.

If he wouldn't try to call and talk to me to build some kind of trust and relationship, then how could I be comfortable enough to tell him the truth without fear that he'd try to find me and kill me as soon as they released him?

He needed to let me in.

I knew he thought I was intense before, but I really had to be now. Whether he liked it or not.

And I knew just how to get his attention.

I stopped rubbing my belly and picked up my phone. I had downloaded that phone app to load money -- but the bàstard never called.

My belly suddenly thudded and I smiled, "I'll get back to rubbing you, my love, but we have to reel in your daddy. I think he's just a stubborn man who needs a teeny little push every now and then."

I loaded fifty dollars onto the account attached to my phone number and then I downloaded the commissary app that I heard David talking about. I created an account and found Zedlin's inmate information.

"Zedlin... Nathaniel Hayes? His middle name is Nathaniel? Shìt, why do I actually like that name now?" I muttered to myself. I already knew his last name, because my mother married his father, so my mother was a Hayes, too.

Ignoring myself, I loaded another fifty onto his books, as they called it. I was told he could get a long way with just twenty dollars, so fifty would definitely get him to start calling me.

Satisfied, I logged off of the apps and pulled the covers around myself.

"Now we wait. Your daddy won't disappoint. I just know it," I yawned slightly and soon was dead to the world.

*

It was three days later when I was sitting in my car outside of the school an hour before I had to go inside, when my phone rang.

It was Zedlin.

"Here we go, my love. I apologize in advance for your daddy's potty mouth," I talked to my stomach as I answered the call.