Sweet Romance12 min read
He Said "We're Expecting" — The Sea-Horse Secret
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I found the pregnancy test in the kitchen trash at midnight.
"Two lines," I said, and my voice sounded small in our quiet apartment.
Hugo was at the sink, elbows wet from dishwater. He turned slowly, like someone waking from sleep. "Is it yours?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Whose—"
He walked toward me the way he always crossed a room: quietly, without fuss. He smiled with a confusion that made my stomach flip.
"It's ours," he said.
I laughed because my first instinct was disbelief. "You mean—"
He touched his lower belly, the way some people touch an old bruise. "Yes. The forum... the test. The post. It was real for me."
I had met him at a marine lovers' meetup almost a year earlier, when I was KeiraD_77 on the ocean forum. The man who introduced himself as "Hugo" had the exact kind of face that stopped me in the middle of my drink.
"You are Keira?" he had asked, and his voice had been low.
"Yes," I spluttered. "KeiraD_77."
He sat across from me. "I am Hugo."
"I thought—" I started, and then the drink I held sprayed across the low coffee table onto his shirt.
"I am sorry," I said, and I meant it.
He didn't explode. He blushed in a way that made his seriousness crack. "It's early," he muttered, like he was telling the world a secret. "But I want a child. We should... understand each other."
That night, in the moonlight, he leaned over and kissed me like it was the only honest thing in the world. He told me he wanted a child; he said "sea-horse" like it was a joke and like it was a confession. I didn't know then that both things were true.
"You're joking about the sea-horse," I whispered as he kissed my throat.
He smiled and exhaled. "Not joking."
When I first discovered he wasn't kidding, I felt betrayed and dazzled at once. We were contract married—two people with an agreement: one child, then divorce. That was the deal. We signed because the ancient sea-folk and human eccentricities made the legal options complicated, and because it was the most clinical solution to what felt raw inside me: a sudden chance to be a mother and nothing else.
"Marry me," I had said to him one awkward afternoon, half daring, half pleading.
"You want a child," he answered simply.
"I can act the part," I said, and the words were ridiculous and true at the same time.
"Then let's do it," he said.
We were professors at neighboring universities. He taught marine biology and conservation; I taught economics. We argued about currents and market curves, dinner table conversation flipping like fish in a net. He owned a sort of quiet that made the world fall away. I was loud, I was rushed, I liked numbers and lists and plans. He had a quiet secret that the world of science could not fully explain: blood that answered to the pull of tides, to an older, stranger instinct.
"You're really going to be the one cooking for a while?" he asked on my first day of being domestic.
"Yes," I said. "Pregnant people need proper nutrition."
He laughed, but then at the wastebasket incident he had gone pale, which was how I learned he wasn't human the way everyone assumed.
"This is ours," he said, and his hands were gentle on his lower belly. The bathroom light hit the soft curve where a human belly might begin. There was no wave of obvious growth yet, but there was a small, secret strength there I hadn't seen before.
We started tender routines. I left him soups and warm plates at his office; he left me notes in margins of books about marine larvae and nursery grounds. "Read this," he'd say. "For the baby." He called the baby "the project" in the early days, like a scientist with a soft heart.
"Do you get sick?" I asked once, stroking his back after a meal.
"Yes," he said. "A little."
"Then please let me," I said. "I will pack you crackers."
He made a face. "You are ridiculous," and then, softer, "Thank you."
Students started to notice. Annika, my favorite graduate, came by with a stack of papers one afternoon, and when she saw me hovering at Hugo's door with a thermos she grinned.
"Professor Davenport," she said, "you're the picture of maternal efficiency."
"That's me," I said proudly. "Domestic goddess."
Hugo's reaction that day was a study. He attempted to be nonchalant and failed. He pushed his chair back slowly like someone exercising caution near an egg. When a colleague mentioned he looked ill recently, he dismissed it with a dry joke and an impossible smile.
"Maybe he's pregnant too," someone muttered.
"Ha," I said, but later that week I discovered that joke was more chemical than comic. I opened his office door and found him adjusting something at his mid-section.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Checking for the brood sac," he said, awkward and earnest. "It's different with us. There is a place—"
"Please don't."
"Sorry," he said, and his face burned at my mockery. "I get curious."
We had to navigate limits carefully. He was a sea-folk male who carried infants in a brood sac—a soft, laterally placed pouch—a place that the human language couldn't describe without sounding naive and strange. His species had adapted to a life that blurred the line between myth and science. To me, it was bewildering and fiercely intimate.
"There are so many things you don't tell me," I said once, and we lay in his bed while the rain tapped like a metronome. "Why didn't you tell me about her?"
He turned his head. "Her?"
"Your—your old affair. 'Tatiana' in the thread, 'DearSea' in messages. She called you, and you lied."
He blinked. "I told her we were not married because I thought—"
"Because you thought you might lose her?" I snapped.
"No," he said. "Because I didn't want to hurt you."
I didn't know whether to laugh or throw something at him. The logic was a fish in a net. "You hid to protect my heart and to keep a secret? The only person who gains by secrecy is the secret."
He didn't answer right away. "I didn't know how to say I wanted both of you at once," he finally admitted.
"You wanted me and her?"
"I wanted a life where I could protect my species and be with someone who understood the tides inside me," he said. "But when it came to you, I—"
He put his hand on my chest as if to find his words there. "I loved you before I understood my fear."
The initial shock didn't vanish easily. There was another woman who had known him once, a forum friend who had called him "my seahorse" as a handle. She had met him first, perhaps, or maybe their years untangled differently. She had messaged him with cold clarity: "I hate children. I'm glad it wasn't me." The messages stung. Still, every time I thought of her I felt oddly small and irrational.
"Would you like me to confront her?" I asked, more from some private, vindictive corner of myself than from prudence.
He watched me for a long minute. "If you must," he said. "But be careful."
I did confront her. The confrontation is something I will not forget because it ripped a seam in our public world and left everything exposed. It happened at the university's summer lecture series where marine conservationists and scholars gathered. Tatiana Dawson—"DearSea"—was on stage as a guest speaker for a panel about captive breeding and ethics for hybrid lineages. She had come with a confident smile and an audience ready to applaud.
I arrived with a printed copy of her messages and a heart that felt like an animal trying to find its den. I waited for the Q&A because I knew the forum of truth was always noise and windows and witnesses. When the moderator opened the floor, I stood.
"Miss Dawson," I said, and the room hushed like a net pulled taut. "I have a question about your public stance."
She blinked. "Professor—"
"Keira Davenport," I said, and the room turned more than eye—some turned phones to beam us into strangers' nights. "You said online that you disliked children and that you're glad my husband wasn't taken by you. You said, 'I am glad you didn't marry me, Hugo—you're better off.' Why did you write that?"
Murmurs spread like ripples.
Tatiana's face hardened. "This is private banter," she said. "Why are you—"
"Because you brought your venom onto a public forum," I said, my voice steady. "Because you chose a platform where my students and colleagues could see and where your words could define me in absentia. You told me, in writing, that you'd prefer him without responsibility or children. You tried to write my husband out of my life before he decided anything."
She scoffed. "You made a spectacle of your private life. You married for a contract."
"Perhaps," I said. "But the difference is I took responsibility. You threw your words like nets at the ocean and expected no one to get tangled."
Phones were out; a dozen faces stared. Tatiana's eyes flicked to the audience, looking for salvage. The moderator tried to intervene. "Ms. Dawson, please—"
"No," I said. "I will not be shut up. You said you disliked babies. You messaged my husband to ask if he was married and then mocked him because he chose a human life. But he chose love. He chose me. How does that make you better?"
Tatiana's lips tightened. "That's ridiculous."
"Is it?" I asked. "Because right now, half of this room—my graduate students, your colleagues—are hearing you say you don't want children and you are boasting about it. They are hearing you judge us for being willing to try. Where is your remorse?"
She blinked. "You are painting me as a villain over a phrase."
"A phrase that, for him, for our embryo, for everyone who believed in this contract and the kindness inside it, was cruel," I said. "You told him that you're glad he didn't marry you, and then you suggested he avoid family life. I am asking per the public interest: Do you stand by that?"
The auditorium held its breath. A voice from the back—one of my students—took out a small recorder. "Professor," the student said. "We have copies of your messages."
"That's private," Tatiana whispered, and for the first time her voice cracked.
"Nothing private in public forums," I answered. "And you didn't think about the consequences. You said my husband 'would be better without children' right after learning he was carrying our children. That is not just a personal preference. That is public cruelty."
"You're hysterical," she spat.
"Maybe," I allowed. "But the people in that chat—the ones who saw your messages—some of them are young parents. Some of them are under 30 and wondering whether academia rewards family. Your attitude matters. Your words have shaped an environment that tells people their choices must be lonely."
Her delegation of supporters shifted. A journalist in the back, who had covered campus culture before, raised a hand. "Ms. Dawson," she said, "do you think it's appropriate to publicly mock a colleague's choice?"
Tatiana's face changed from flippant to defensive. "I never meant to—"
"You did," another voice said. It was Hugo. He had come. He stood at the side of the stage, hand protectively on his belly, and looked at Tatiana with something that was neither entirely human anger nor ancestral regret.
"You told me you hated the idea of children," he said slowly. "You said I would be better without those burdens. But when you found out I had chosen otherwise, you mocked that choice." He looked at me then and smiled something small, vulnerable. "Keira is kind. She is doing what she believes is right for both of us. She didn't deserve your cruelty."
The room grew louder. Tatiana's eyes blazed but also showed fear. People whose lives revolve around evidence began to whisper about ethics, about whether personal prejudice should be allowed a public platform. A senior colleague rose and said, "We should not model contempt for life choices."
Phones recorded every syllable. Tatiana tried to retort, but her words came thinner. Her supporters were few and some even turned away. Tears pricked at her lashes. A younger woman in the third row stood up and said, "I once believed not having children was noble. I'm pro-choice. But cruelty is not a virtue."
Tatiana's composure split.
"Why are you all—" she began, but the sentence unraveled into a small, shocked laugh. Embarrassment, then anger. "You have no right," she said. "To—"
"To critique," a voice said. "Yes. We have that right."
Her face moved through stages I will never forget: the haughty mask falling; surprise; flustered denial; then a flash of petulant fury; and finally a sharp, choking realization that she was watched and judged. Cell phones clicked as bystanders recorded. A professor, someone she respected, raised his eyebrows and turned his back on her. Students stood and murmured. A crowd is a current, and once it turned on her, she found it hard to step back.
"Why did you message him?" I asked softly, close enough only she could hear.
She broke. "I thought—" she started, and then she looked at the room and knew the choreography. "I thought I was saying something honest." She swallowed. "I didn't mean to—"
"You meant to hurt," I said, because I had to say it. "Words hurt when thrown like stones."
Her shoulders dropped. Her mask was gone. For a terrifying second she looked like a child. "I'm sorry," she said, and the words landed flat in the auditorium but heavy in my hands.
People began to clap. It wasn't a clap for her apology; it was a clap for public accountability. The journalist leaned forward. "Do you want to comment for the record?" she asked.
"Yes," Tatiana said, but this time her voice was small. "I didn't intend—I'm sorry. I will step back from those public forums. I will—"
The outsider recorded it. Social media fed the moment for hours. Articles about professional responsibility and private cruelty circulated for days. People took sides, but most found her behavior unbecoming for a public scholar. The humiliation wasn't theatrical—she didn't scream and fall—but it was honest and lasting: the professor whose cold dismissal became a footnote in her own career commentary. She lost a panel invitation the following month; one of her graduate advisors withdrew a letter of recommendation. Those were not legal punishments, but in academia, reputation is a currency and she had burned a lot of it.
The public punishment wasn't about vengeance. It was about visibility: her cruelty exposed, her denial recorded, her tears televised. For once, the community decided they would not let a single voice make other people's lives feel lesser. The crowd's reaction, the journalists, the trending threads—each was an honest mirror. Tatiana changed. She apologized with a candid email and then stopped engaging in public vitriol. That was the punishment: stripped support, corrected public record, and a long silence that replaced commentary.
After the incident, Hugo and I walked out together.
"Thank you," he said.
"For standing up?" I asked.
"For being my anchor," he said. "And for being cruel when needed."
"Don't call me cruel," I said.
"Sometimes the world needs cruelty to see kindness," he answered, kissing my temple.
The weeks that followed were domestic and ordinary. I learned how to make his favorite soups; he learned to laugh at my terrible economics jokes. We argued about whether to invite my mother, June Armstrong, or keep our plans private. June arrived with a dramatic flair: red lipstick, a silk dress, and an opinion for everything. She hated what was public and loved what made her grandchildren warm.
"Are they both from you?" she demanded the first time she saw his belly.
"Yes," I said. "But one day they'll be yours more than mine."
June's eyes softened in a way that startled me. She wasn't maternal the way the books promised—she had a business brain and a warrior's heart. But she loved fiercely.
When the summer turned, Hugo's belly grew. He was a man made softer, with the first obvious swell, and with it came discomforts: heartburn, fatigue, strange cravings. At night he would wake me up and whisper, "He moved," or "She kicked." We named them before they were born: in whispers, we called them "Hush" and "Dawn," silly nicknames that stuck.
We learned ancient customs the hard way. Hugo's people had a ritual for marriage that humans did not require: a "same-life knot" that bonded two lifespans. It frightened him. "If you join my people," he said once, "we do something called the sharing-bind. It changes everything."
"I don't want to live forever," I said bluntly. "I want to grow old with you if you want, but not at the cost of losing my friends in my seventies."
He looked at me, seeing me like the first summer he had shown me a bioluminescent reef. "Then we don't bind," he said. "We will be our own kind of family."
I wanted to hug him until the fear left his shoulders.
Our last weeks before travel to the deep sea for the birth were a blur of shopping and packing and reading. The sea-folk midwife arrived, a stern woman who smelled of salt and lavender. She was efficient and had a thousand and one prescriptions that read like chemistry.
"You are human," she told me in a voice that had been used to barking orders at beasts. "You will be present. You will support. This is a birth like no other."
The deep sea was a different world. After we descended to Hugo's ancestral reef and the water took my breath with its pressure and wonder, I saw the scale of his life: titanic, strange, and beautiful. White coral towers and an octopus—white as moonlight—loomed like a patriarch and looked at me with eight curious eyes. The midwife arranged a cradle. The ritual had a sense of old bones and new life.
Then labor began. Hugo sat cross-legged in a shallow basin carved by the reef and the brood sack opened like a folded promise. It was a burst both scientific and miraculous. The midwives pulled two small humans free, and they wailed in a sound that echoed like waves.
"They are healthy," the midwife said. "A girl and a boy."
Hugo cradled them and looked like a man made of memories, of deep trenches and forgotten songs.
"Hello," he whispered. "Hello, Hush. Hello, Dawn."
June wept like a storm. I held him and the babies. In the long aftermath, in the gentle quiet, when the reef hummed with life and the octopus watched, I thought of the journey.
"Why didn't you tell me you liked me before?" I asked him once weeks later, lying in bed with two babies sleeping against my chest.
He kissed the top of my head. "I told you in a hundred small ways," he said. "In the soups you made and in the way I pretended to flinch when you sprayed coffee. I told you in the choice not to hide when I was afraid."
I looked out at the sea. Bioluminescence blinked like distant stars. "I thought you were gone once," I admitted. "I thought you would never come back."
"I almost didn't," he said. "But I thought of the brood and of a life with you and I wanted all the impossible things."
I laughed, which turned into a small sob. "You are impossible," I said.
He smiled, the old, slow curve. "We are."
That night, he put his hands around my waist and said, "Marry me properly, Keira Davenport. Not because of contract, nor because of duty, but because I love you."
"I already did," I said.
"No," he said. "Legally with our families. With the vows that mean we will stay when it is hard."
We married on a small beach at dawn with the white octopus watching like a godfather and June making a speech about daughters and daughters-in-law that included a business metaphor about investing in human capital. Annika shouted over her shoulder something about the practicalities of leave policies. We laughed. We promised.
The last thing I remember before drifting to sleep that day was Hugo's palm pressed over mine on his belly, feeling two small hearts—one like a drum and one like a bell—and thinking that secrets sometimes become the scaffolding of the most ordinary miracles.
The End
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