Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
A castle. A meeting. A man with a scar.
The same sharp but ultimately still useless memory fragments keep popping up. Doing nothing to help me and everything to piss me off and make me nervous.
But, anyway, that’s all why I think it’s reasonable to believe that Danny might not be right when he says everything’s “gonna be fine.”
I want it to be. Obviously I do. I want everything to be fine. But, y’know, that shit’s not really up to me. Because if this thing turns positive in about thirty seconds, and Danny and I have made a baby, then the fantasy of how I wanted life to go before—having a kid; doing it with Danny, my first love and longest love, specifically; and the three of us still coming together, being together, to watch it be born and grow and…
Then everything becomes so dangerously close to being a reality that if anything were to jeopardize that… that might be it. As strong as I am, as much grit as I have, as resilient as I know myself to be… I don’t know if I could come back from that.
I realize I’m holding my breath. I don’t know why. No, that’s bullshit. Of course I do. But it doesn’t matter now. I can let it out because…
A “plus” sign appears.
I stare at it for a second. I knew it would be. Positive, I mean. I know myself, my body, and I just… knew. But here it is. Visual evidence.
There’s just the briefest second where I think, Let’s take one again to be sure. But that’s both dumb and unnecessary. I know what I know and now Danny knows it too.
He picks up the stick, looks at it, looks at me, then drops the stick in the sink and grabs me, envelops me, smothers me in a hug. He buries his face in my hair and kisses the side of my neck.
I am pregnant. Again. This time with Danny Fortnight’s baby. I am standing here on a five-star luxury hotel on wheels, alone with a person I love and with whom I just found out we’ve made a baby, and he’s so happy he can’t even speak, just holds me tightly, making sure I feel him and his happiness and love and our connection… and it’s all so perfect it’s like it’s from a storybook. And as I realize this and take it all in and let the reality settle, the feeling that courses over me is utter and absolute…
Terror.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I’ve been standing in front of Eliza’s door debating whether or not to ring the buzzer for at least the last ten minutes. I have found myself looking up and down the corridor to see if anyone is watching me. The butler or that Nigel oke. Maybe Danny and Christine out to look for me. But there’s no one there. It’s just me, alone, apparently too much of a doos to do what I stepped out here to do.
But then I reflect upon the reality that we all must face our fears alone; and even though my fear isn’t death or judgment or any of the things inside of which most human beings find their anxieties embedded, it is no less palpable for me. My greatest fear—if I am to be honest, and at this stage, why the fok not?—is myself. Having a confrontation with me. Because I can be a sneaky fokker and you never know what I might do.
So, my hesitation in ringing Eliza’s doorbell isn’t that I’ll be face to face with her. And it’s not that she’ll say things to me that might be unpleasant to hear. It’s that facing her will force me to also face myself. The me I was. The me I am. The me I’m considering trying to evict from his home so that he no longer has a place to dwell in the future.
Another way I have heard people refer to this phenomenon is: Being accountable.
Fok it, man.
Ring. Ring.
It has that old-school tone to it. That thin, tinny, high-pitched bell sound that one might find on a child’s bicycle. It would be interesting to know who will be meeting us when we arrive. Who has orchestrated an affair so elaborate and, quite clearly, costly, just for the purpose of… I’ve no idea. But we’ll find out soon enough, I reckon.
Eliza is on the phone when she opens the door. She sees me standing there and takes on an expression somewhere between agitation and expectation. Not as in “expectant,” but as in “she appears to have been expecting me.”
“Russell,” she says into her mobile, “I’ll call you back.” She tabs end on the call. “Yes?” she says to me.
“Everything all right with the brus? They return the Lynch laaities home yet?”
“What do you need?”
Such an exacting question. “What do you need” and “what do you want” are not, precisely, interchangeable. They do not mean the same thing. A want is, of course, a desire. A need is… I’m not sure, actually. I don’t know if I have felt “need” terribly often in my life. All my needs have always been more than met. My wants know no end, on the other hand.