love.

Once again, Otto did not cope well.

It was too substantial of an 'incident' for her to sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen; like she did when Wes first slapped her.

She beared the physical signs of what happened, she couldn't escape it, if she didn't look in the mirror she still saw the bruises of where she hit the steep stairs. If she closed her eyes she felt the ache in her muscles.

She could not escape it.

If she wasn't in her current, predicament, she would just snort enough pills that up and down blurred into one.

But she couldn't.

Even though she really fucking wanted to.

She felt like all the emotions were going to swallow her whole, they felt like they were burning her from the inside out.

She felt so much and she didn't know what to do with it all.

It wasn't like she did when her dad told her he was dying, she could push that back, it wasn't happening right there and then.

But, this was happening right there and then.

Her mother had no clue of what happened the day prior, she was just curious as to why Otto hadn't gone to school.

She walked into a room with the blinds pulled shut, it was completely silent, Otto had the blankets pulled right up to her chin. She wasn't asleep, she just stared straight ahead as she lied on her side.

There was clearly something wrong.

"Is there a problem with Wes?" Laura asked, it was the most likely reason as to the state of her daughter.

Otto didn't respond, but as her mother got closer she saw her teenager's face. Her lip had scabbed up and the bags in her eyes were painted black and blue. Otto had scrubbed the blood from her nose off in the shower but at some point more leaked out and rolled down her cheek and a few drops landed on the mattress.

"Oh, Otto, we need to get you to a hospital."

Otto didn't shift her gaze, "I'm not going to a hospital. I'm fine." Her voice was monotonic.

Laura had no clue what to do, forcing Otto to go to the hospital wouldn't be good, but letting her stay im the state she was in also wasn't a good idea. She had never felt so utterly helpless, she always prided herself on being a good mother, she was loving and endlessly patient. She always made sure to go to all of her extracurricular acitivies and never cared about her grades, she just cared that she was happy.

And she was no longer happy.

There was no parenting book that covered "what to do if your daughter's psychopathic ex-boyfriend beats her whilst pregnant with another boy's baby and she is refusing any help."

Perhaps it was a little too niche.

Laura did what she thought was best and climbed into bed next to Otto and then she did what she had done when Otto was sick as a child.

As she lied next to her in the bed she reached out and ran her hands through Otto's hair, starting and the roots and running through to the ends.

It never failed to make her fall asleep.

And asleep she fell, it only took a few minutes of her mother's touch to send her into a deep slumber.

Once she was asleep Laura rolled over and looked up at the ceiling.

She wasn't a violent person, but fucking hell did she want to murder Wesley Harrington.

Knowing Otto would be asleep for a while she got out of bed and went to her husband, she broke the news gently, first explaining that Otto was physically okay. The mental side wasn't looking good.

For the first forty-eight hours all she did was sleep.

She didn't cry once. She wasn't really sad, she was just emotional.

Then she got out of bed and had a bath, instead if looking at her body she watched the ceiling, as she as she seemed to be so often doing.

It took a full week for her to get all her duck's in a row, she had simply texted Kie that she was fine, her father was fine, she was just taking a week off.

JJ hadn't said anything, it really wasn't his place to, after he dropped her off he got a text from Otto that under no circumstance was he to do anything to Wes.

He just wanted to do what she wanted, so begrudgingly he agreed.

When she went back to school she acted as if nothing had ever happened, when they enquired about her absence she simply smirked and told them she'd have to kill them is she told them what happened.

Those emotions that felt like they were going to swallow her or burn her from the inside out got buried deep, deep inside of her.

As did most of her emotions.

They were stored away, and she forgot about them.

She met up with them at the Chateau, she was her usual slightly judgemental, sarcastic self.

Otto never felt the need to not act like herself around the group. Back at her hometown she always put up this act, she was always smiling and acted like every boring thing that came out of her friend's mouths was the most fascinating things she'd ever heard. In reality it was boring as sin.

Sitting in the hammock as she so often did Otto sat up to see who was sitting near her, Pope, Belly, Maria and Kie all sat on a sofa opposite them. JJ, however, sat on a chair that was near Otto.

It was almost like he could sense her looking in his direction as his head turned and saw her.

Her once neatly braided hair was now a little messed up, flyaways poking out in random places. She was wearing what was obviously an old, navy knit jumper. Not to mention the lazy smirk on her face.

He couldn't read anything she was truly thinking. Just what she wanted other's to see.

He wanted to ask what she was feeling, if she was okay, and how he could help.

But there was no way that'd go down well.

"Can you push the hammock?" She asked him.

Of course he would, but he didn't want to make himself look like a kindergartner with a crush so he glared at the girl.

"What's in it for me?" He asked.

"I give a mean high five."

"I'm going to need more than that, love."

"One, don't call me love. And two, name your price and I'll bring it down to an appropriate level."

"A hug?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"I'd much rather f--"

"JJ. If you want to see tomorrow just shut your mouth."

He raised his hands in defeat and reached out his boot clad foot and gave the hammock a light push. Otto laid back and enjoyed the sway.

Apparently the light movement and little burrito wrap was all it took to send Otto into a deep sleep.

The next day Otto hung out in her house, she hadn't heard a peep from Wes. She blocked him on every platform she could think of to try and ensure he had no way to contact her.

She spent time with her father, in the bath and getting some homework down - although she mostly just stared at it for an hour and then decided she had done enough - but now she was lying on her bed watching reruns of shitty TV shows.

With a fluffy throw pillow clutched to her chest and one leg thrown over it she watched as one housewife slapped the other for some innocuous reason.

After she was a few episodppes deep into the rabbit hole Laura walked inside.

Otto turned the TV to mute and sat up to look at her mother, she had a slightly serious look on her face which was unlike her.

Taking a seat at the end of her Otto's bed the girl's heart began to race.

Was there something wrong with her dad?

"Have you told JJ yet?"

This was relieving, it was nowhere near as bad as it could've been. Although it also wasn't great.

Now that she wasn't throwing up every other second and gagging at the smell of food, she could forget the fact she was pregnant.

And that meant she forgot what relationship she had with JJ.

He was no longer just a friend who she had sex with.

He was a friend that she had sex with and had fathered a baby.

Otto looked away from her mother's face, "I just haven't found the right time, I can't really tell him with the rest of the group and we don't often spend time just him and I."

It was an excuse, a poor one at that.

Laura sighed, she felt bad for JJ. She was good at reading people, she knew Wes was bad news and she knew JJ was good, at heart. She also would've bet a lot on the fact he didn't have a good home life, which would only made the situation he was about to find himself in all the more difficult.

But, he had a right to know.

Of Otto had decided to get rid of the baby he never needed to know, but now there was going to be an actual baby involved he had a right.

"You need to tell him." Laura said, more stern that usual.

Otto laid back, rubbing her hands down her face.

Why wasn't this simple? Why wasn't anything simple?

"I'll tell him, I promise." Otto said, she was telling thr truth but she didn't exactly have a good idea of the timeline she was tell him in.

"Soon." It was as if Laura read her daughter's mind, "He needs to know before it's clear you're pregnant, he really should've known already."

She left, she knew Otto needed to think.

And she knew her daughter would make a good decision.

Otto grabbed her phone and scrolled to JJ's contact. Clicking on it, her finger hovered over the call button.

She should tell him in person, right?

But that sounded stressful, so a call would be sufficient.

Otto hated phone calls.

A text would be perfectly acceptable.

Clicking on the message button her fingers hovered over the buttons. What was she meant to say?

"Just wanted to let you know you+me=pregnant."

"u got me preggers lol"

"Hey! Congratulations, in a few months you're going to be a father!"

None of those seemed appropriate, this was a serious matter and deserved to be written as such.

"Dear JJ (or whatever your first name really is) Maybank,

I regret to inform you that you managed to impregnate me.

With kind regards, Otto."

Trying not to overthink it she sent the message. She couldn't really pretend anymore, the little bubble of the secret she kept had burst.

Before it was nothing but a rumour that died out in a few days, now, now it was reality.

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