Chapter 456) Bridges Burning

A (mostly) wordless chapter

The preface

This is the story of 28-year-old IT Specialist Lucas Calderas, a single dad ever since one reckless night of partying in college lead to an unplanned pregnancy, a shotgun wedding, a very brief, unhappy marriage that ended in divorce, leaving the mother M.I.A. and him a single dad at 20, with all his big dreams for his future shattered. His family was never wealthy, so to make ends meet he moved back in with his parents from Foxbury campus, then switched to an affordable community college halfway through his degree.

8 years later now, he and his daughter still live with his parents, the three incomes together allow them to live comfortably, but its a far cry from the spectacular and exiting life filled with adventures and travel he once dreamed of, as he withers away between PTA meetings, crayons and his IT desk job, lonely and lovelorn, and with major trust issues towards women.

Enter 24-year-old aspiring actress Coralie Beauchamp, a French born San Myshuno transplant, who is trying to make it big one day, but her only claim to fame so far are some commercials and a supporting role in a long-running soap opera.

It (barely) pays for her tiny downtown apartment but doesn’t afford her the grand life she always imagined as a girl, especially when at the tender age of 13 she lost both parents, leaving her older brother to raise her and her sister. Her humble fame and the resulting change of how some people treat her because of it was enough to give her a thorough distrust in men and their true intentions with her.

Fate willed it that Lucas and Coralie’s paths would cross, instant attraction turned to more, so for months she has been burning through her airline miles to go see him, as they enjoyed time together, always only a few days at a time, trying to build up tender feelings of love into maybe one day a relationship. So far, while his family has met her a few times, neither has been ready to call their status official.

San Myshuno
Coralie Beauchamp's apartment

The next morning
San Sequoia
Meeting with Lucas

Back home

The best friend keeping her sane.

The apology.

A surprise visit by Lucas

He explains why he reacted the way he did and that a shotgun wedding is completely out of the question and finds out that Coralie isn’t crazy about the news either, as she might lose her job because of this, as her strict contract prohibits pregnancy and various other changes to her appearance for the current season. Neither can afford to move. Neither is prepared for this. Neither has any clue how to work this.

They end up separating without a solution but both with a bitter aftertaste after they ended up fighting again … bad things were said, accusations thrown out there, living on opposite sides of the country, Lucas even doubted paternity.

The confirmation

The small gleam of hope that maybe the drugstore test was erroneous is snubbed out during a doctor visit.

Family

The next day she gets a visit by her siblings, brother Thierry, who had married a wealthy heiress named Sandrine some months ago and sister Elodie, who got married three months ago to a nice, quirky but very likable guy Coralie had only met a few times.

It was obvious that Elodie’s wedding had a sweet reason: she was pregnant by her husband. She was so much in love and excited about it, it was contagious.

Quite literally, as her brother and sister-in-law had their own baby news.

This was when Coralie fell to pieces. Until this moment, her mind had been made up. A baby didn’t fit into her life, the baby’s father didn’t want to be a father again and lived to far away to help, leaving only one solution, one she wasn’t gonna tell anyone about. Instead, the truth poured out of her. She told her brother, sister and sister-in-law everything.

Everyone was shocked and not at all supportive of her choice … but very supportive of her. They decided they would help her, with or without the baby’s father.

To be continued ...