Chapter 1

Five years later.

Maya POV

I placed the last box on the floor and closed the door with a kick, remaining with my eyes glued to the car seat in front of me. My baby slept blissfully, the pacifier between his lips, his favorite puppet squeezed between his hands. Willy the giraffe we call him.

A few tufts of light brown hair came out of the hat he was wearing. He was breathing heavily.

Axel had collapsed while we were traveling in the car, my little man was so devastated by this trip that he had not opened an eye even while I was carrying in our new apartment all the boxes I had in the car.

It wasn’t an easy trip from New York to Philadelphia, especially for a nearly two-month-old boy like Axel. We had to stop several times because the young man did not like the view that was in front of him.

I looked around the small apartment, which was my new home, the whole living room was full of boxes, as well as the kitchen table and the sofa.

It was so weird being back in Philadelphia after all those years of being away. After I left to study first in Boston and then in New York, where I had spent the last two years.

I sat on the ground and tied my light brown hair in a high tail behind the back of my neck, before taking a box and opening it. It was a Friday afternoon, and I didn’t have any plans until Monday morning when I started my first shift at the hospital. Thanks to my father, a retired orthopedic surgeon, I was able to get a job as a nurse in the emergency room of the Lankenau Medical Center and thanks to my mother’s help I was able to get that apartment near the hospital.

I started to pull several clothes out of the box, they all belonged to Axel, but I still had no closet to put them in. My phone rang so I reached out to get it in the bag on the couch.

\"Hello?\" I said by blocking the phone between my shoulder and my ear while I kept pulling out clothes.

\"Maya!\" cried my mother from the other line, \"Are home already at home?\"

\"Yes mom. I just put down the last box and I’m starting to pull out a few things, although I don’t know exactly where to put them.\" I said looking around.

\"Axel?\" he asked with a concerned tone.

\"He sleeps blissfully in the car seat, the journey tired him very much.\" I told her looking up at my child.

\"Have you heard anything about him?\" she asked with caution.

\"Mom...\" I say sighing, \"He hasn’t been around or heard from in the last year, do you really think he would do it now?\" I got up and grabbed the seat before I moved to the kitchen and put it on the table.

Brad, my ex and Axel’s dad decided to disappear when I told him I got pregnant, disappearing is an understatement. He yelled at me, calling me whore, that had tried to frame him with a baby so he could put a ring on her finger.

Brad and I dated for two years before I get pregnant. I met him in college.

The beautiful and dark boy that everyone wanted to have but had eyes only for me. He made me promises of love. He said once we finished college, we’d move in together, get married, and have a family. But after college, it was never the right time.

First, we had to get a job, then we had to find the time, then we had to stabilize until he stabilized between the legs of his colleague, and even then, I forgave him. Because I loved him, I loved him so much.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was so happy, that I couldn’t wait to tell him. I already imagined the tears of joy on his face, but I never saw them.

Brad threw the test at me by yelling at me and smashing the table in half, shouting that I had to get rid of that problem.

Problem.

I could never do that. So I told him to go to hell and continued that pregnancy on my own, alone. I continued to work until a few months before the birth, I was supposed to go on maternity leave and then continue to work, but shortly before returning my hospital fired me.

So, I ended up with a baby, a scholarship to pay back, an apartment to support, and no job.

My parents were so sad for me that they convinced me to go back to Philly, they helped me get back on my feet. They even offered me to go home with them, but I didn’t feel able to weigh on them, not with Axel in my life.

So, I rented a small apartment in a neighborhood not far from the hospital, enough for me and my baby, and I planned my new life.

Maya?\" I heard my mother’s voice.

\"Sorry, Mom, I was a little overwhelmed.\" then I picked up a box and opened it, and I started to pull out some kitchen utensils.

\"Later your father will come with your old crib and put it together so that you can put Axel more comfortable.\"

\"Oh beautiful. I must go buy some furniture too. I don’t have a changing table, I don’t even have a dresser for his things, the closet in the room is old and it stinks, I’ll have to buy a new one. And on Monday I had the first shift.\" I began to say exasperated.

\"Quiet, breathe. We have all weekend to deal with this. You don’t have to do it all by yourself, you know we’re here for you.\" my mother gently told me.

I took a deep breath and rested on the kitchen table as I watched Axel stretch imperceptibly, before falling into a deep sleep.

\"Why don’t you come with Dad? We can order a pizza so you can spend some time with Axel,\" I said quietly.

The truth was, I needed my mother. Since everything happened with Brad, I had never asked anyone for help, I wanted to manage on my own, I had been alone, I had not allowed the people who loved me to be with me, and I had pushed everyone away. When I got fired, I almost fell into a depression, if I hadn’t had Axel, my reason for living, I wouldn’t have been able to get up again.

It was time to let the others help me, and that was the first step.

\"Really?\" my mother’s voice was hopeful, I dare not imagine what she had to face because of me.

\"Sure.  The house is not the most comfortable, not yet, but we can arrange something. So, we can create a program for Axel and for when I start working.\"

\"I think it’s a good idea!\" she said enthusiastically, \"I can bring something I saved of yours, I can also pick up milk powder!\"

\"No need, I’m still breastfeeding, and I still have the breast pump that my colleagues gave me at Axel’s baby shower.\"

\"You should start taking it off your breasts or you’ll end up with swollen tits while you’re at work.\"

\"When the time comes, it has not yet arrived.\" I told her as I began to put the plates in the cupboard.

\"Yes, I am sure. I will begin to prepare what I need!\" she said cheerfully before she hung up.

I looked for a moment at the now black screen, before putting the phone on the coffee table and starting to fix everything.

By the time Axel woke up crying, I’d already fixed all the boxes with the kitchen on them.

Immediately I untied him from the car seat and took him in my arms, while he cried desperately grabbing the collar of my shirt with his little hands, clearly trying to get to his food source.

Immediately I lifted my shirt and discovered a breast before Axel rushed over it with voracity, eagerly drinking milk while looking at me with his blue eyes like the ocean.

I moved to the living room and sat on the couch, moving some boxes while I took off his hat and put it on the coffee table.

Axel drank until he was full and then he fell off, I rearranged my shirt and bent my knees, resting on it my little wad waiting for the moment my parents arrived.

The bell rang, rumbling around the house as Axel watched his hands carefully.

I got up with him in my arms and I went to open the door, finding my mother full of bags in front of me, and she went into the house like a fury, leaving everything on the ground and rushing on Axel.

\"Here he is, my little prince.\" she said, taking him out of my arms and filling his face with kisses that he accepted happily.

\"Where is Dad?\" I asked looking out the door.

The hallway light on the floor was on, but there was no sign of my father.

\"Oh he’s unloading the car. Right? Grandpa is coming\" she continued with a sharp voice as she watched Axel relax blissfully in her arms.

\"And you left him alone?\" I asked in dismay.

\"She’s not 80, he can do it, just chill out.\" she says on the way to the kitchen.

I rolled my eyes and followed her meekly, ready to be run over by my mother’s storm.