Surviving the Pain (A Baby Saved Me Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

lips.
    “What?”
    “You are such an excellent mother. I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become, Emmy. So proud of you. You’ve fought a long and hard battle over the past year, and you don’t complain or try to take the easy way out. You just keep pushing. I’ve never been more proud of you.”
    Tears filled Ember’s eyes as she looked back and forth between her parents. She wasn’t being stubborn just so she could get some praise from her parents about how strong she was. What would her parents think of her if they found out that in her heart of hearts, she still wanted to curl in a hole and die sometimes. That her heart was still with Sage, and it still hoped he’d come back around. How pathetic was she to hang on to a man that didn’t want her? To hold on to a man that made it very clear, she meant nothing to him? Epically pathetic, that’s what she was, but there was nothing she could do about it. Sadly, nothing she wanted to do about it either. Life was better this way. Safer. Hudson was safer this way. Everything was about him. No one else mattered. Not her broken heart, her stressed mind, her troubled soul, none of that mattered. Just Hudson and it would forever be that way.

Hudson’s first birthday…
    Smiling, Ember looked around her little apartment. Today Hudson turned a year old. Tomorrow, tomorrow Sage, the man Ember couldn’t seem to forget, turned twenty. Honestly, she had thought that he’d be back already. Thought maybe that he’d wake up and realize what he pushed away, but that’s never happened. Today was not meant for that. Today was all about her living miracle. Ember also had a surprise for her parents.
    Since leaving school after getting pregnant, Ember’s circle of friends has shrunk to just a select few from work and her parents. It didn’t bother her. She only wanted Hudson surrounded by people he could count on. In the beginning, Ember had contemplated telling Sage’s parents about their grandchild, but she quickly changed her mind. Donna and Collin Jacobs were not good parents to Sage to begin with. It was probably why he left to make a name for himself to begin with. When that reasoning hit her, she harbored anger for them. Ember blamed them for all the pain she’s suffered and was still suffering.
    Two years. Two years of heartache and suffering. All of which could have been stopped long before it happened if they were better parents. Better anything. They barely even spoke to their son. As if they weren’t low enough on her Richter scale, they came to see Ember when they realized that he had left. One week after Sage was gone. It took them a whole damn week to realize their own son was gone. The vile that poured from them that day made Ember realize why he had left. She understood why but still hated that he was gone.

    Loud pounding sounded throughout the house. It was borderline on breaking their front door. Huffing, Ember set the towel she was folding aside and made her way to the front of the house. As she entered the living room, she could hear screaming, but couldn’t make out the words clearly. Peeking through the peephole, she hesitated on opening it. Sighing, she pulled the door opened and prayed for mercy. Ember didn’t think that Sage thought this through when he decided to leave. He left Ember with his baggage here. Mercer Falls was a suburb of Henderson. It wasn’t tiny, but it wasn’t big either. It was just small enough that everyone could know your business by the end of the week. Thankfully it was big enough that not everyone knew every single person in the town.
    “Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs, what ca…”
    Ember didn’t figure she’d get a full sentence out before they started in, but she tried anyway. Manners were something that her parents had drilled into her at a young age. Just because they lacked the manners and social etiquette, didn’t mean she did.
    “Where the hell is he?” Donna Jacobs hissed in her face.
    “I don’t know,” Ember