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Lina woke up early the next day with a big smile on her face. It was her birthday and she had to find Jo. Nick was still asleep and she carefully sneaked out of bed. The last day had been great, she had missed Jo and she was glad she’d decided to come. Even with her own problems right now she couldn’t miss Jo’s birthday. She hadn’t told Nick about the pregnancy yet. She didn’t know how to say it. She put some clothes on and carefully opened the door and walked out into the hallway.


“Hey watch it” she heard a voice behind her giggle.

“Jo, what are you doing here?”

“What do you think? Don’t you remember our tradition?”

“Of course I do, I was just on the way over to you. Where should we go?”

“We could sit down in the lobby.”


They walked down to the lobby and sat down. They both handed a gift to the other person. They had been doing this for years, when they exchanged their presents no one else could be there. It was their personal moment together.


“Let me guess, a book?” Lina said with a smile. Another one of their traditions were to always give away the same thing every year. Lina always got a book and Jo always got a lip gloss.

“You know it, so what colour is the lip gloss this year? It was red last year so it couldn’t be this time.” They sat in the lobby for a while talking and giggling. Remembering all the other birthdays they had together. This one was absolutely nothing like them.


“Who would have thought I’d be pregnant at this one” Lina thought. She felt the nausea hitting her and she concentrated on getting it to stop.

“You’re so quiet, is something wrong?” Jo asked. Lina turned her face away. She couldn’t tell her, not before she told Nick about it. But she didn’t wanna tell Nick either, she wasn’t ready to deal with the fact that she was having a baby.

“No, everything’s just fine. I'm tired that’s all. Maybe I should get back to Nick, he’s probably wondering where I am.” They got up from the couch and walked back to their rooms. Before leaving Jo she gave her a big hug. She desperately wanted to tell her but she couldn’t.

“See you later okay?”

“Of course, I’ll see you tonight at our birthday party. Spend the day with Nick. You two need to spend some time together, since you’re not seeing each other that often.”


Before she got in to the hotel room she took a deep breath. “Okay Lina, calm down. Tell Nick when you’re ready”

“Hi birthday girl.” Nick came towards her and gave her a big kiss. She wrapped her arms around him and stayed there for a while. It felt safe. “You weren’t in bed when I woke up, where have you been?”

“Oh, I was with Jo. It’s a tradition we have. We sneak off and exchange presents.”

“What did you get then?”

“A book, as usual, we always give away the same thing every year, another tradition.”

Nick looked at her and just laughed. “You two are not like other people are you?”

“Nope!” She leaned in and kissed him again.

“So what have you gotten for me?” She said curiously.

“Well I’m not telling you. You’ll have to wait and see tonight.”

“Oh, Nick I don’t want to wait all day, please tell me now...” she looked at him with puppy eyes and hugged him.

“No. You have to wait, and don’t look at me like that, it’s not getting you anywhere.” Nick smiled and walked away to put some clothes on. She suddenly felt the nausea coming back and she ran into the bathroom.
After a while she heard a knock on the door.

“Are you okay baby?”

'Shit,' she thought. 'I can’t tell him, not yet. I’ll do it tonight.' She got up from the floor and walked out to Nick. “I’m fine.”


She avoided eye contact and walked off to the livingroom area. They spent the rest of the day wandering around town, enjoying beeing together. As they got back to the hotel they changed clothes and made themselves ready for the party. Lina was scared of wearing anything too tight. She knew that the pregnancy wasn’t showing yet but she didn’t wanna risk anything, so she wore a sweater with a loose fit for the evening and a couple of new jeans to it.

“You look so cute, I could just kiss you all night.” She turned around and saw Nick standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

“Thanks babe, you look good tonight too.” He was wearing a couple of jeans and a black t-shirt. He had styled his hair the way she liked it. Kind of messy, as he just woke up.
They walked down to the hotel restaurant where everyone had already sat down.

“Sorry we’re late.”

“That’s okay.” Howie said. “Okay, now everyone get up so we can sing to Lina.”
They all stood up and sang happy birthday.

“Ahhh thank you that was lovely.” They had all gotten together and bought her a birthday present. It was a beautiful necklace in gold with a matching bracelet, similar to Jo's but without the locket.

“Thank you guys so much. I love it.” She gave them all a hug and sat down at the table again.


They all ordered drinks before dinner but Lina took a coke. She saw the surprised looks from Jo but she ignored them. 'Why does she have to know me so well?' she thought and smiled. 'I really have to tell Nick tonight, I don’t know how long I could keep this from her.' She knew that Jo would be suspicious of her. Usually she loved to have a drink for dinner, and Jo was well aware of that. But she was terrified of Nick’s reaction to the news she had to tell him.


“Now it’s my turn.” Nick said with a smile. “I hope you’ll like it.” He handed over a package.

She opened it and found a beautiful picture frame with a picture of her and Nick. They were smiling and she sat on his lap. The inscription on the frame said 'true love last forever'.

“Thank you Nick, I love it.” She felt her eyes tearing up. She really loved him.

“That’s not all, I have these too.” He handed an envelope to her. She opened and saw plane tickets. She couldn’t believe it. 'How could he? God I’m so stupid, I knew he would try to control me.' She thought to herself and got really upset. For her the tickets symbolized him trying to control her and try to force her to come visit.

“What is this?” she said and looked at him with anger written all over her face.

“Plane tickets...” Nick sounded nervous. This wasn’t the reaction he had planned on. “I wanted you to have those so you could come and see me as often as possible.”

“Obviously...”

Jo looked at her trying to get her to calm down but that was no use.

“Maybe we should leave these two alone for a while?” Jo said and reached for Alex's hand. “Come on baby.”
Brian took Baylee and the others followed him. Lina felt Leighannes hand on her shoulder and turned around.

“I know what you’ve been trough, but go easy on him, he loves you.” Leighanne said and walked away.

Lina turned to Nick and looked at him again. “So, what is this?” She asked again. “Is this just a way for you to control me? You know I’ll come and see you but I want it to be on my terms.” She saw Nick getting angry.

“Has it ever occurred to you that a relationship is built on the fact that both of us should be allowed to have an opinion? I wanted to give you those because I know it’s expensive to travel like this all the time.”

“Yeah right, and by giving me those you made sure that I have to come...”

“I thought you'd wanna see me, is that wrong?”

“No but...” she didn’t know what to say. She still thought what Nick had done was wrong. He couldn’t make decisions for her over her head. But the hurt in his face wasn’t something she had expected.

“I don’t know what to do here Lina. Everything I do is wrong with you.”

“That’s not true...”

They didn’t get anywhere with the discussion except for getting ever more mad at each other.
When it was time for Nick to leave for the concert that night they still hadn’t resolved anything.


“Are you coming Lina?” Jo asked sitting on the bed in Nick’s hotel room.

“Nope, I don’t wanna. I just want to be here and calm down okay?”

“I’m sorry to say this, but I think you’re overreacting to this. You have to stop comparing him to Dan. If you don’t trust him, how you gonna make it work?”

“I know Jo... okay? I know! But I don’t know how. I wanna trust him, but I’m afraid that if I do I’ll get hurt. And I don’t like the plane tickets. In a way they are sweet but to me they symbolize him trying to make decisions over my head. And that’s not okay.”

“Whatever... you know Nick wants you to be at the concert. Do it for him.”

“No. I wanna get some sleep. Tell him I love him and we’ll talk tomorrow. Please?”

“Fine.” Jo sighed and got off the bed. “But you’re making a mistake. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She walked off and Lina started crying.

'Why can’t he understand how I feel? Why does he keep pushing me? I’m not ready. And when I tell him about the baby I need to be prepared for him leaving me. The last thing he needs right now is a child.'


She fell asleep with the thought of Nick in her head. She was terrified of losing him, but still she pushed him away. She dreamed of the baby, but Nick wasn’t in the picture. She was alone.


The next day she never got to talk to Nick. He was mad and so was she. None of them brought up yesterday and when she left to go home they hadn’t resolved anything. And Nick still didn’t know that she was pregnant.