61. My Life (Julie)

"Erik, I'm just worried for you! I don't want you to end up like me or your father. We were so young when we bonded and it's something I'll forever regret. I never took the time to really get to know your father before we discovered that we were fated. He took full advantage of that and only showed me a side of him that I wanted to see. If I had known the kind of man he really was before I made that decision, we wouldn't be in this situation we're in now. Just promise me that you'll take your time to really, truly get to know this young lady before you mark her. If possible, I don't want you bedding her either. However, you're an alpha and I do understand that, so at least, please, please, remember to use either condoms or verify that she's on some kind of birth control. Remember, we can't afford to have another two mouths to feed. We can't afford the upkeep for your mate's lifestyle she's used to either, so you need to make that clear to her right from the start!" Julie lectured her son. 

She was only worried about him and his future. She didn't want to see her baby get hurt like she had gotten hurt by his father. Mikael was a clever deceiver and had made her believe he was a different sort of person and she had quickly, too quickly, fallen head over heels for his web of lies. She had readily agreed to bond with him, while she had been under the influence of her heat and then she had quickly found out about Erik after that heat.

That moment that she realized that she was pregnant was the only time she had felt so ecstatic about being pregnant. She was quite under the illusion that marriage and a happy family was in her future. Well, she had gotten married, but only because Mikael's father basically forced his son to marry her since she had gotten pregnant. It had been a shotgun wedding before a civil servant, and she had been nearly ready to pop by the time he dragged his feet and proposed. The next day they went to the local courthouse and got married, and a week later, Erik was born. She thought he would be happy that she had given him a son and that was at least the one thing she had been right about.

For a few years they were somewhat happy, but her new husband was spending more and more time away from their little apartment and their 2-year-old son. She had been really careful about tracking her cycles and calculating when she was due for her heats and periods, not wanting to get pregnant again for a while. She was successful for three years. Their income wasn't great since she hadn't graduated high school before Erik was born so she was studying in her spare time while raising Erik to take her GED exam.

Mikael wasn't exactly bringing in the money either since he was also a dropout. He did odd jobs here and there and often worked nights at a construction company or so she thought. Well after nearly a month of not really seeing her husband but for a quick glimpse of him on his way in or out with clean clothes, she decided to wait for him one night when he was supposed to have a day off. What she found was only the first clue that she wasn't as important to him as she thought she was. He had gotten out of the fancy car of some rich woman, and he had addressed her as babe before leaning over and kissing her through the driver's side window after he had gotten out.

She immediately confronted him about the woman and asked him who she was and if he had been seeing her behind her back. He denied it at first and then proceeded to distract her by sending her into heat. Needless to say, she got pregnant right away again, with her careful planning thrown out the window. He all but forced himself on her when she had only wanted to get answers. But she was married and mated to him so she had no choice but to accept him, she thought. After that night she dropped all mention of the woman and pretended she hadn't seen a thing. This seemed to please him since he spent a bit more time at home and had a bit more money to spend on them for a while after that.

After Nicole was born, he pulled a disappearing act for a few weeks. He had made his displeasure known about the fact that it was a girl and not another son. With Erik being nearly 3 when his little sister was born, he was very inquisitive and asked all the questions she couldn't answer, especially about his father not being home. Erik had always been a bright boy and raising him had been a breeze except for how to keep him entertained. He quickly outgrew most toddler activities, so she often took him to the library with her and Nikki when she was studying for her GED. It took her nearly four years to finally get that diploma, but it wasn't as if she could enter the workforce with a toddler and a baby to look after.

Her parents had disowned her once they found out that she had mated with Mikael, so she had no support there. Mikael's father was an old-fashioned alpha male and wanted no part in helping her out with her 'omega duties'. With no one to turn to, not even a friendly neighbor, she resigned herself to being the good little omega housewife and supporting her mate. Their tiny apartment only had one bedroom so when her mate was in the mood, the rare time that he was home, the children slept in the living room. She performed her duties and again, she fell pregnant nearly two years after Nikki had been born. She again had another little girl which pissed Mikael off. 

They moved out of the little apartment to a slightly larger one across town in a poorer neighborhood when Kylee was about a year old. With three children, it was difficult to live in a one-bedroom apartment and have the privacy her husband demanded. His infidelity only got more blatant, and his jealousy was downright ridiculous and dangerous the more time went on. The next time she got pregnant was quite traumatizing. This time he had forced himself on her in the midst of her heat cycle and he threw out her suppressants in a rage, stating that she wasn't allowed to deny him the pleasure of her body in heat.

Sarah was born six months later and when she was about a year old, fearing for her safety, she gathered up as much of hers and the children's meager things and took all the money that she had been holding back from the money he gave her for groceries. It wasn't much, but a few hundred dollars saved managed to get them a bus ticket across state lines and to what she had hoped was safety.

She couldn't have been more wrong. He tracked her down, beat her, and again forced himself upon her and left her pregnant and penniless. The money she had managed to make while a neighbor watched the kids was stolen from her and he pulled a disappearing act. Left without money and pregnant with another child, meant that she had to work right up until their birth. She waitressed right up until her water broke. Thankfully she had a kind boss that had helped get her to the hospital, but she had to rely on her neighbor to look after the kids for the night as her labor stalled, and they wouldn't release her from the hospital since she was considered high risk because of the state of her body.

After having three girls in a row, she had hoped that a boy would be born and that would appease Mikael long enough that she could run again. But once he caught wind of another daughter, he completely ghosted her with nothing in the bank for her to pay for the birth, let alone raise another baby. After that, she never used their joint bank again since she realized he had tracked her using her bank card statements.

Taking Heather home to her tiny studio apartment, she felt miserable and was suffering from severe postpartum depression. She wanted to escape from her husband for good and contemplated it several ways, but her children needed her. She couldn't bring herself to face their father, even to ask for a divorce. With the kind elderly neighbor helping her out, she managed to save just enough to move again. With five children she was running out of options and money to support themselves, but she always managed. With the little free time she had, she started to study. She figured if she could get a better job, maybe as a nurse, she could support her kids and herself better. She was thankfully a quick study, but when she found out the cost of nursing school, it immediately put that out of reach. She couldn't afford to go with five kids to look after, work full time, and pay for a babysitter.