Happily Not Chosen

By Ansu Barkhuizen

The story begins when two star struck lovers meet for the first time. Madly in love with each other up until something changes their whole lives as they know it, Elizabeth is sixteen and pregnant with twenty two year old Arnold as the father.
Surprise surprise as they find out that it is a set of twins.


Despite all the roadblocks in their love for each other Arnold and Elizabeth have found a way to be together at last but not before Elizabeth had to make the hardest decision of her life while listening and being manipulated by Arnold to choose his decision. Her choice being the influenced one affecting and changing the life for her own daughter whom she doesn't get to meet or know until later in her life.


We meet Mr and Mrs Jones and get told their troubles in life and the exact moment when Donald's gift for Juliet arrives making their lives change for the better.
They finally are able to also be parents to a beautiful little girl.


We meet Anne and follow her life with all the hardships there in and all the happiness she experiences with her better half Liam and her children and their families. Anne loses Donald in a plane crash where he is later on declared legally deceased as he had been missing for so long.
Later on in life genetic cancer starts her search for her biological parents whom she is surprised to find out she has met before in her life.
Not having an easy path to the actual meeting of her biological family with bribery, plans and schemes to get them to admit who they are she quickly finds out that she doesn't fit into their lives and they do not fit into hers as she has built it.
Anne grew up to become the successful twin while her brother is in and out of jail.


Anne and Liam end up becoming parents to two beautiful children whom later on also get to experience when their children finds the love of their lives.
Cue drama when Donald appears back from the dead in their lives again shocking an already moved on and happily married Juliet at the wedding of Alexia, Anne's daughter.


Along the way many more people join the story adding love, sadness, heartache and happiness to the lives of our beloved families.


Follow along with Anne as we explore her life story of love, happiness, sadness and most importantly of all drama.
Shedding tears along with her when she is sad and being happy along with her in times of happiness.
Through the hardships and happiness bestowed by fate on to her path of live.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ansu Barkhuizen
• Release date: Dec 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215345610

Ansu Barkhuizen

Born in a small farm town I never thought to start writing and having people read it but after moving to the city this all changed.  Romance and everything related to it has always been close to my heart and writing it and having people read and experience what I wrote makes me happy. 

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Hi. My name is Anne Jones and this is the story of my life. The story doesn't begin at my birth or one or other special birthday or something like that but way way back, back to where my biological parents met, the troubles and roadblocks in their way that influenced my life from the start of my breath and subsequently my life journey as consequence to my biological mothers decision.

Well let's get started.

Elizabeth's P.O.V (Anne's Biological mother)

I met the love of my life. We have been together for 6 months and it is just amazing. He is just amazing. We fell in love and I fall more in love every time I see him. Life is just great... although my mum doesn't seem to agree with my point of view of Arnold. You see he is a little older than me. I am only sixteen and he is already twenty two. My mum feels that he is only in my life for one thing and she believes that once he has gotten what he is after he will be dropping me like a hot potato and scurrying off to go and enjoy the rest of his life, leaving me alone if there would be problematic consequences.  I don't believe he is like this but my mum told me that I am just naive and that I should get rid of him. I don't want to but no amount of talking to my mom and explaining that he isn't like that is helping so I just dropped it all together. Fighting over the same thing each and every time was starting to grow old. I

get that she just wants to protect me but it's not needed from Arnold.

I still remember the day we met as if it happened yesterday. It was love at first sight.

Flashback

I walked into the coffee shop to order my favourite cappuccino flavour of the month, No judging.. they bring out so many new great flavours that it's hard to keep just one favourite. There were no open tables left to sit at but there were a few open chairs where I

could share a table with some other people. I looked around to find the perfect and the most non-creepy place. That's when my eyes landed on Arnold sitting at a two seater table typing away on his laptop. Having decided at the time that this is where I would like to sit. I went over there and asked if he would mind.

When he looked up it was love at first sight. Work and homework forgotten we talked for hours until the shop owners chased us out as they wanted to close the shop. Arnold dropped me off at home after we exchanged cell phone numbers and promised that we would soon meet again.

End of Flashback

And meet again we did...

One afternoon we made plans to meet at our favourite coffee shop and later on went to his house. As we arrived at his house he opened the car door for me like always and we both went into the house. I went to sit on the couch as we were going to have a movie night and he went to the kitchen to make us something hot to drink. He came and joined me on the couch with the steaming cups of

coffee and some snacks. A little while into the movie we started making out and that ended bad.

I woke up the next morning still at his house, in his bed and I was naked. Panicking I got up and started getting my clothes and getting dressed. I really needed to get back home before mum notices my absence. I started remembering what happened last night and this only made me rush more to get dressed and out of here before Arnold wakes up.

A little while later

As I got home I thankfully saw that mum's car wasn't in the driveway. Remembering that she said something about visiting a faraway relative or aunt or something. At least she wasn't with her slimy boyfriend again.

I rushed inside and stripped out of all my clothes taking the longest shower of my life. Trying to wash everything that happened last night from my memory and from existence. After what felt like hours I got out and dressed in my fluffy pink pyjamas and got into bed trying to get some sleep.

BUT...

He just keeps on calling me. I'm not ready to talk to him at the moment. I'm sixteen for goodness sake. I'm not... I'm... I'm not supposed to be losing my virginity and having sex. Stopping the tears wasn't going to happen so I just let them fall.

Over the next few weeks the calls got less and less until they completely stopped. We still messaged every now and then but I wasn't comfortable with going anywhere with him at the moment. He must have gotten busy with work as I had gotten busy with school as the messages seemed to stop all together. I still loved him, that can't be taken away it's just that I was feeling so guilty about what happened between us. Mum of course had questions when I started staying home more and not going out as frequently as I had before. Luckily that was easily dismissible with lame excuses because she would most probably not be looking into it as that would be wasting precious time she could be spending with her flavour of the month.

I went on with my life as much as could have been possible until my regular period never showed up. I'm never late as in never, not even a day. This could only mean one thing. This is exactly what I was trying to not happen to me. Especially not at the age I

currently am. I didn't want to be the stupid girl who had sex and got pregnant at sixteen.

But it looks like fate had other ideas for me.

CHAPTER 2

Working up the courage to even go to the pharmacy to buy one of those pregnancy tests was hard. What is there was someone that knew me or mum in the shop? They would tell her and then I would have to please and explain what I was doing buying a pregnancy test for when she is under the impression that I haven't even lost my virginity.

Not like I would be trying to talk to her about anything that happens in my life anymore as she had told me the last time that I was basically just a burden in her life at the moment and that she would be kicking me out of the house as soon as she lawfully and possibly could. She is more interested in spending time with her current flavour of the month and only asks me questions she deems necessary to establish to her standards that I am not messing around and doing some things that would have her fork out anymore money that the absolutely necessary.

Finally decided that buying the test would ease my worries even if only for a little bit. I went to the little pharmacy on the corner of the block. Once inside I looked to see if there was any familiar faces in the shop before I grabbed 3 different pregnancy tests from the shelf. I also grabbed a random magazine to cover them if there would be someone familiar coming into the shop.

I needed to be sure and Google said that these home test could sometimes give a false negative or even a false positive being wrong. I paid for them at the checkout and ran home.

Mom's car wasn't in the driveway so she was probably at her current boyfriend's place again. She is never at home anymore since my dad left when I was very little. Mum never told me why. This was the reason that after I met Arnold I spent most of my time with him. He made me feel loved and appreciated. He made me feel that there is place for me in this world and that I wasn't just some girl that was useless burden to the ones around me.

But since I left him I felt alone and just wanted to die. I know I could just call or message him and explain what went wrong and why I was being so distant but at the moment my brain didn't even want to see this as a possible answer to the

problem. Deciding that it was now or never I went into my bathroom and locked the door. I read the instructions and now it was the waiting game. They took forever to show me the results and when it was finally done I stared at them in shock. All three had double lines and according to the boxes that meant that I was pregnant. After a mini freak out and a full on anxiety attack I caught my breath thinking that this would probably be a good time to get into contact with Arnold again. I had to at least let him know that I was pregnant and that he was the father of the baby. If he then decided to never speak to me ever again I would just have to accept it and try and move on with my life. Hopefully my mum wouldn't be too mad at me like grandma was at the when she became pregnant while she was still in school.

I didn't have anyone else if she and Arnold ended up dropping me and never talking to me again. I would be alone in this big world and I would have a little one that would be dependant on me for their necessities and everything they would need.

It took quite a while but I finally managed to calm myself down and stop thinking about what if's and worst case scenarios. It was currently too late to make contact with Arnold so I decided that I would try and get the courage to message him tomorrow morning first thing.

Arnold's P.O.V  (Anne's Biological Father)

I woke up to my phone ringing the special ringtone I had assigned to my beloved Elizabeth. I never ended up changing it when she started ignoring me after that night we slept together. I tried to meet up with her and talk to her about it because I knew she must have been freaking out about everything but she never pitched or made arrangements to meet with me. It's been 2 months that she has been ignoring me and now suddenly I was good enough to be in her life again. I was debating whether I would answer the call or

whether I would just ignore her like she ignored me when the phone stopped ringing.

Sighing

I listened to the realistic side of myself and was just about to call her back when the phone rang again. It was Elizabeth again.

Answering the call I put the phone to my ear and said hello. After all the pleasantries were handled she asked if it would be possible for me to meet her at our favourite coffee shop because there is something very important that she had to tell me and she would rather not do so over the phone but rather in person. I did want to see her again as the love I felt for her was still there and my feelings about her hasn't changed. I agreed to meet her hoping that the serious matter she needed to discuss wouldn't be bad news as I would still like to marry her one day after she had finished school and was ready to become my wife.

Calming myself down and trying to stop imagining all the worst case scenarios in my head I decided that I would go and take a shower and start getting ready to go and meet Elizabeth to hear what she wanted to talk to me about.

CHAPTER 3

Arnold's P.O.V (Anne's Biological Father)

Waiting for Elizabeth at the coffee shop felt like the longest time of my life. I was so stressed and worried that I arrived an hour before we were supposed to meet, thinking that the time would pass quicker if I was already at the coffee shop. That isn't what happened.

Finally I saw her coming through the door and looking around to spot me. I give her a quick wave and then see her going to the counter to order her drink.

I wonder if her favourite drink is still the same as what it was two months ago. I used to love to tease her about having a new flavour each and every time they released any new flavours and she would blush and mumble that there really wasn't a way to choose between some of them.

Those were the good old days. The days I have gone to miss extremely since she began ignoring me. I would come to the coffee shop hoping to catch a glimpse of her sitting at one of the tables with her drink doing her homework or just reading a book.

The dragging of the chair made me blink back to the present and focus on Elizabeth who had just sat down at the table with her drink and a pastry of some sort that kind of smelled really good now.

She took a few deep breathes as if to calm herself before she spoke in her usual soft voice.

Hi, uhm thank you for actually coming to meet me. There is something we urgently need to talk about.

She said all the while she looked so stressed. I took her hand and nodded my head for her to continue.

Even if it was the worst news that she could give me I would still be here to support her.

So I uhm... I'm sorry that I just disappeared two months ago. I really wanted to call and talk to you I just felt so ashamed of what we had done and I didn't know how to handle it all. She said in one sentence. I barely heard everything. She caught her breath and opened her mouth to speak again but closed it again afterwards. I gave her hand a gentle squeeze and urged her to continue with what she wanted to talk about. I didn't think saying something now would be suitable as she was the one talking.

––––––––

Now there is no easy way for me to say this and I would understand 100% if you want to leave and never talk to me again. Her eyes started watering and she took a few breaths before she tried to continue again.

Now she had me worried. What's wrong? You can tell me. I love you. I won't leave you.

She took another deep breath and I assume before she loses her courage she continues. I'm pregnant! She whispered it so soft I almost didn't catch it.

The gears in my head started turning at what she had just said. Did I hear her correctly or did she say something else? Wait your what? I shouted at her making her cry even harder. Shit, I didn't mean to do that. Okay shssss, don't cry. I didn't mean to shout. Please stop crying I'm so sorry. This didn't seem to help and people were starting to look at us funnily. I needed to get her out of here before someone did something to make the situation worse. How about we go to my house where we can talk in private?" I asked, hoping she would accept, going over to her to hold her in my arms. She weakly nodded a yes. I stood up, helped her up and took her bag and then helped her outside to where my car was parked on the street.

I opened the passenger side door for her and helped her get in. It was a very quiet and awkward drive to my home. Nobody said a word and even the radio was silent. When we arrived I got out, opened her door and helped he into the house and to get comfy on the couch. I sat down next to her. The tension and silence in the room was so thick you wouldn't be able to cut it with the sharpest knife out there.

Elizabeth's P.O.V (Anne's Biological Mother)

We sat in awkward silence for so long it was starting to irritate me so I started the conversation with some good old small talk. So what have you been up to? 

He turned to me and fiddled with his fingers. Something I had learned he does when he doesn't know what to say. Not much and you?

So he was continuing the small talk. We needed to address the pink elephant in the room sooner or later and I decided that I would like to have it done sooner.

Well I found out I was pregnant and that's exciting I guess.  Que him taking a deep breath before talking again. Here come the questions and the rejection.

––––––––

Are you sure your pregnant? 

Well I haven't been to the doctor yet. I don't want to go alone, you know. I did take three home pregnancy tests 

Why don't you ask your mum to go with you? 

She doesn't have time for me.

O okay. Do you want me to go with you to the doctor? 

Would you? That would be wonderful please yes. 

We talked more and before we realised it was night time. Just like old times.

I should get home. I turned around and looked at him before I went to the taxi already waiting outside. Thank you for listening to me and not rejecting me when I told you that I am pregnant. He just came over and gave me a hug. It might be the fact that I missed him and his hugs but that was one of the best ones he has ever given me.

CHAPTER 4

Two months later

Elizabeth's P.O.V

As he had promised he had gone with me to the doctor's office. After all the tests were done the doctor informed us that I was indeed pregnant. Arnold asked so many questions it made me blush and try to hide in shame. He even went so far as to have an extra copy of the first ultrasound printed out for him to put in his wallet to keep it with him always. I tried to remind him that there would be more ultrasound pictures to come but he said that this one is special as it was the first time he was seeing our baby.

He even said our baby. He turned out to be so supportive and helped me without asking questions or looking back.

At our next and second ultrasound, we were excited to get to know the gender of our baby. What we didn't expect was to find out that we would be having two babies. Turns out that our boy was hiding his little sister at the previous scan. They were both in perfect health and condition. Once again Arnold had an extra ultrasound picture printed and placed it along with the first one in his wallet.

Back home, Yes I live with Arnold now, since my mum said I got what I deserved and kicked me out of the house. She didn't even want to listen to my explanations, neither did she let me get my stuff. Arnold and I had to sneak in and get my stuff while she was out of the house at her new flavour of the month. Luckily, she hadn't had the locks replaced and I still had my set of keys. Those were left on the counter with a note telling her that I was sorry and that I didn't want money but that I would appreciate her support and help in what I would be going through.

She never did make contact with me after that. She was probably happy that she didn't have the problem of a burden hanging around her neck anymore and that she got rid of me even before she had planned to. It kind of hurt because she was the only family that I had left and that I knew of. At least I now have Arnold and the twins as my family.

Arnold didn't let me get too sad about this. He would spoil me and take me out on dates and we would have the best of fun.

One night about five months into the pregnancy I was having a very difficult night and was sick most of the night. Arnold being the supportive man he was helped and stayed awake by my side during the whole night. This made me feel guilty as he had to wake up early to get to work on time.

He did happen to be a few hours late to work and had gotten a written warning as a result of this. I felt so guilty as it had in fact been my fault but he said that it was alright and that what's done is done. This didn't make the guilt go away but at least made me worry a little less.

––––––––

Arnold planned another perfect date for us. This time he had arranged a picnic for us under the stars in the botanical gardens. It was absolutely breathe takingly beautiful. Just as we were getting to the desserts he had packed he started getting nervous. I didn't take notice of this until he was standing on one knee in front of me with this amazing ring and asking me if I would marry him and promising that we would be raising the twins together in a loving home.

Through the tears I managed to say yes that I would be delighted to marry him and raise the twins in a loving home where both parents were present.

A few weeks later

Arnold came home looking like