Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
I sat there for a long time, holding the pregnancy test in my hand. The warmth of the air and the cold of the tiles seeping through my leggings were a reassuring contrast. Basic physical sensation, that’s what I needed right now. No thoughts. No worries. Just relax.
Eventually, I fell asleep. When I did, I dreamed of pregnancy tests raining from the sky like hail, thudding into the ground around me. They each had the same thing: a big, pink plus sign staring me down like the eyes of some nocturnal animals.
I woke up sometime later with a start. Through the crack in the opening of the door, I could see that the sun outside had set and it was nighttime. I tried to struggle to my feet, but the effort brought a fresh wave of nausea rocketing through me. I dropped the plastic stick, fell forward onto my knees, and hurled my guts up into the toilet in front of me.
My retching echoed in the tiny bathroom. I threw up again and again, until there was nothing left but stringy bile looping between my lips. My throat and abs were sore from the convulsions and my temples were pounding with a vicious headache.
When the fit had passed, I rocked back onto my heels. I used a piece of toilet paper to wipe the gunk off my mouth as best as I could, then that, too, went into the toilet bowl. I pressed the lever and watched as the vomit was whisked away down the drain.
“Who was it?” someone said.
I looked up. My father was standing in the doorway.
I blanched. “Daddy, it’s not what you think.”
“No?” he said. His voice was murderously cool. It was somehow scarier that way, even more so than when he ranted and raved. Those eyes—the same grey as I had—were flat and unyielding. He looked capable of anything. “Then what is that?” Extending a finger at the floor, he pointed out the pregnancy test I’d dropped. Even in the dim light, I knew he could see the positive result. My drooping head said everything else.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It was an accident.”
“Who is the father, Carmen?”
I shook my head side to side. I couldn’t tell him. For some bizarre reason, I felt an insanely powerful urge to protect Ben. There was no telling what my father might do, and if I gave Ben up, then I would have a hand in whatever happened next. I didn’t want that.
In a single rapid motion, he took one step forward, dropped to a crouch, and seized my forearm in his grasp. He ripped me around to face him. “I won’t ask you again. Tell me who it is,” he hissed. His nostrils were flared wide.
“Daddy, you’re hurting me,” I whimpered.
“Tell me!” he roared. He shook me like a rag doll.
I screamed. I felt so weak and helpless. Where was all the strength I’d had when I was with Ben? On the back of his motorcycle, I felt like I could do anything. Now, though, I was defenseless. I was a little girl again, getting screamed at by her father, unable to stand up for myself and with no one around to protect me.
“Ben Killmore.” The words were barely audible, but as soon as they left my lips, he stopped shaking me. Instantly, I felt lower than I’d ever felt in my life. I’d given him up with hardly a fight. I was a coward. A weakling. I didn’t deserve a warrior like Ben. I deserved what I had: nothing.
My dad dropped my arm and stood up. He towered over me, smoothing his hair back with two hands. Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the room.
I leaped to my feet and raced after him as he took the stairs two at a time while shrugging his leather jacket on. “Where are you going?” I screamed. “Daddy, stop!”
He ignored me and kept going.
I slipped, caught myself on the railing, and followed him to the front door. “Daddy, please! Stop!”
On the threshold of the door, he paused and whipped back around to face me. “I’m going to find him,” he said in a clipped, strangled voice. “If you leave this house while I’m gone, then you will never get the chance to do so again. Stay here, Carmen. I’m warning you.”
He slammed the door shut. The house had never before been so silent.
Chapter Twelve
Ben
“You okay, boss?”
I looked up from my daze. Slick was standing in the doorway. “Yeah,” I said vaguely. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You look a li’l out of it.”
“I’m just…thinking. That’s all.”
“You’re gonna hurt yourself, thinking that hard,” he joked. He grinned widely, but I didn’t return it. I couldn’t find it in me.
I was feeling all sorts of fucked up. After the visit with Dina, I’d come straight back into the office and collapsed into my chair. I hadn’t moved for over an hour. I’d just been sitting here, staring into space, caught somewhere between day dreaming and doing nothing at all. I couldn’t get the image of those hands out of my head. Those innocent, unscarred hands.