Insolent

by T. L Smith

  “Olympia, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I lie. He’s always so worried, so overprotective of me.

  “I can hear it in your voice, what’s wrong?”

  Oh fuck! Another sharp pain hits me, and I grip the steering wheel tighter.

  “My stomach.”

  “Oh God, Olympia, pull over right now.”

  “But I’m close, I’m almost—” The pain hits me hard, and my hands pull the steering wheel sharp in one direction toward the ditch. The ditch contains something large and my car hits it with the loudest bang. It all happens in slow motion, and I can account for almost every action that happens.

  My hands pull the steering wheel.

  My hand reaches for the seat belt to relieve my belly from some of the pressure.

  The car hits a tree. Hard.

  My hands go to my belly, thinking they can protect me as I’m pushed hard into the steering wheel.

  I lose sight and everything goes black.

  When I wake, I can feel the drips of blood running down my face.

  The rain has gotten heavier, and the sharp pains that were in my belly are no longer there.

  And it’s dark, so dark that I can’t see anything beyond the rain as I clutch my belly.

  I decide to crawl through the door, my hands hitting the cold ground as I pull myself out.

  I touch between my legs, it’s wet.

  I scream, “What’s going on?”

  Slate will be here, he won’t be long.

  I check back for my phone but can’t see anything. Everything is black. Everything.

  “It’s all right, baby, kick. Show mommy your kick.” I move my belly, waiting for her little but powerful kick to my hand. But nothing comes. I move around, trying to feel her. But nothing. “It will be all right. Everything will be all right.”

  I hate the dark, always have. But I’m afraid that this moment will make me hate it even more. Sitting in the dark, blood and rain dripping down my face as I rock my belly back and forth.

  Somewhere deep down I know, I know that this night will be one I hate for the rest of my life. That tonight, no matter how much I try, I will never forget.

  But I won’t put myself in the dark like this again.

  And then everything goes black.

  “Olympia…” I’m not wet anymore, but I still feel cold. My hands touch my belly, and I go to sit up but searing pain rips through me.

  “Where is she?” I ask him.

  There are dried tears on his face as he goes to wipe them away. “Olympia…”

  “I want to see her. Show me my baby,” I scream.

  The nurse enters. She tells me, ever so calmly, that my baby girl didn’t make it, and that I can see her if I want to. I don’t hesitate, nodding my head, and I’m pushed out with Slate behind me, his hand on my shoulder as we’re taken into a room where nothing else sits but a cot. My heartbeat is hard and fast when I stare at her.

  I think, right then and there, is where I lost a piece of myself that I know I will never ever get back, no matter what I try. My beautiful baby girl wrapped in my pink blanket lies there ever so peacefully.

  “She looks like you,” I tell Slate. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” The tears come down heavy. His hands wrap around my shoulders as he cradles me to him.

  He pulls away and wipes my tears. “This isn’t your fault.”

  “It is. I killed her… our baby.”

  He doesn’t care that I’m in the wheelchair, his arms slide in under my legs, and he lifts me up out of it and carries me back into my room. My tears don’t know when to slow down or when to stop. I’m pretty sure I don’t even want them to stop. They are a reminder of what I’ve lost. Her. A pain that will never ever heal.

  When we get back to the room, we pass my father and brother. Both of their heads are down, and neither of them say a word as Slate climbs into bed with me, keeping my head on his chest.

  “We’ll get through this,” he says in the most quiet of voices.

  I want to tell him we won’t. That I can see how he looks at me differently already, and the way he holds me right now with restraint. This isn’t how Slate holds me, no matter what has happened in the past. He holds me with his love, and that’s not there right now. Maybe he will be as broken as me after this. Maybe, when I wake up, it will be a bad dream, and my belly will be full, and my baby girl will be kicking.

  Wishful thinking.

  “We have to leave, Olympia, we can’t stay in here any longer. The doctor gave you the all-clear, and we have to go to the funeral tomorrow.”

  My breath holds in my chest, and I’m afraid to let it escape. I knew it was tomorrow. They were waiting until I was better to hold the funeral.

  But it’s so soon. Why does it have to be so soon?

  I can’t deal with it.

  I won’t.

  Slate kisses me every morning when he walks in, and I sometimes think he’s holding it together for the both of us because I can’t seem to do it. It hurts way too much to try to be strong, when all I want to do is rock myself into a corner and never leave that position. Let the darkness that wants to eat me up consume me and be happy about it.

  “Olympia.” My father steps in.

  Looking past him to Slate, I see the tiredness in his eyes while his features scream of it. Have I been so lost in my own pain that I forgot his as well? He wanted her as much as I did.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to Slate.

  He simply nods his head, walks over, and with both hands, grips my head and kisses my forehead. “I know. But it wasn’t your fault. The doctor told us that.”

  They said I’d hemorrhaged and there was nothing I could do without a doctor close by.

  We manage to pack all my things and go home. I don’t go back to the place I shared with Slate. I can’t. That place has baby girl things everywhere, and if I have to see that, I’m not going to make it, and I’m not sure what I’ll do. It scares me to see her things.

  Slate’s hand clasps mine as we head home. My father’s driving as we sit in the back. Slate doesn’t look at me while he holds my hand, his stare is lost to the world outside. Lost to me.

  When we arrive, he’s a gentleman, he always is. He helps me out, grabbing my bags and things, and walks with me to my old room—the one we used to sneak him into when we first met. He places my bags on the floor then stands there. He can’t seem to make eye contact.

  “You’re leaving?” I ask him, and again he doesn’t make eye contact with me.

  “Yes, I have to do the house.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have to do it alone.” He shouldn’t, and my father will gladly pay for someone to do that.

  “It has to be done, and I need time to think.”

  “About us?” I ask him.

  “Just to think, Olympia. I’m hurting, too.”

  “I know, Slate.”

  “I’ll be back before the funeral.” He doesn’t let me say anything else before he turns and walks off. Leaving me by myself to be lost in my own head.

  What do I wear?

  There has to be a place out there that supplies clothes for funerals, so it’s something I don’t have to think about. Slate hasn’t come back since he left last night, and I didn’t sleep, too afraid of what’s to come today. Plus, the darkness when I close my eyes is haunting me, it’s not somewhere I want to be.

  “Slate’s out the front ready to go. You okay in there?” my father asks tapping on my bedroom door. My hands shake as I put on a simple black dress and pull my hair back.

  The day goes in motions and monotones.

  We stand at a casket that should never have been invented for someone so tiny.

  We go back to eat and have coffee. I don’t touch a thing.

  The day turns into a week where I don’t leave the bed.

  Slate sleeps next to me, not touching me, he barely looks at me.

  A week turns into a month, and we barely speak to each other.

  Then a
month turns into two, and I know what I have to do.

  “I love you, you know that, right?” I tell him. He’s pulling his trousers up his legs as he gets dressed for the day. He alternates from sleeping here and his parents’ house. We don’t touch each other at all, all we do is sleep. We have become two strangers who simply share a side of the bed each.

  “I know, Olympia. Well, at least I think I do.” He scratches his chin where he hasn’t shaved for what seems like ages. “What’s this about?”

  “This needs to end. We aren’t healthy like this. We will never be healthy like this.”

  “You’re breaking it off with me?” he asks in disbelief.

  “I’m setting you free. You can’t turn into this person. The Slate I know doesn’t mope around like you’ve been doing. You’re vibrant, it’s one of the things about you I find so alluring. I’m tearing you down, and I can’t stand by and watch you simply accept that this is your lot in life.”

  He scoffs, throwing his shirt across the room and it hits the lamp. “No. You don’t get to decide this shit. This isn’t your choice. It’s our choice, and I love you,” he screams.

  “I love you, too, but it’s not enough. In one week’s time I’m leaving. I can’t hang around here anymore. I have a ticket to go around the world. This place is depressing, and it’s bringing me down, and you with it. You don’t deserve this, Slate.”

  “You can’t even sleep with the lights off, Olympia, and you want to run away?”

  “No. I want to find out who I am. I want you to fall in love again and have…” the word is on the tip of my tongue, but it hurts so much to say it, but I blurt it out anyway, “… babies. Someone who will give you babies.”

  He steps up, his hands clasping mine. “I had a baby, and she was beautiful.” Tears leave my eyes, but I don’t touch them or acknowledge they’re there.

  “She was. I love you, Slate. But I also want you to go.”

  “No.”

  “Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”

  “Don’t you want me anymore?”

  “It’s not about that. At all. It’s all about our fate being intervened, and that had to be for a reason. Maybe you need someone who will love you the way you deserve to be loved. I suck at that. I can’t do that. You always loved more than I did, it’s only fair I let you go now.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  I shake my head. “Don’t. I don’t plan on coming back.” I lean up and kiss his lips ever so softly with my tear-soaked ones and pull away. This is our final goodbye. This is what he needs to move on. This is what I need to do to let him go.

  He grabs his bag, turns his bare back on me and walks out.

  I leave the next day.

  And I don’t come back for two years.

  23

  Olympia

  Now

  “It has to be spoken of, Olympia. I loved her as I loved you.” He holds me as he rocks back and forth with me in his arms. It’s been two years now since I lost her, and not a day goes by I don’t imagine how different my life would have been if I didn’t drive myself home that night, and how full my life would be if I had her in my arms right now.

  “She’s in here.” I tap my chest. “Where she will always be.”

  He kisses the top of my head. “Good, I’m glad. He has a son, hey? How is that?”

  I pull away, wiping my tears from my face as Slate watches me. I see him now as a man that I love, there’s no denying that. He’s just that person, he was there handling my grief with me, and I didn’t let him grieve enough as I was too wrapped up in my own world. It was one of the reasons I let him go in the first place.

  “It’s odd.” I look at him and think, Wow, is this what it would be like?

  “I bet you sing to him like you used to sing to your belly.”

  I smile. “I do, he’s beautiful.”

  “You aren’t replacing her if you love someone else’s baby. You know that, right?”

  I look up from pouring myself water. “What’s with all the knowledge?”

  He shrugs. “I did a lot of therapy after you left, to try to piece my world back together.”

  Ah, that makes sense.

  “He doesn’t even like me.”

  This time he smirks. “Oh, no, baby, he’s falling for you, and hard. I know that look because I had that look. You make it easy to fall in love with you.”

  “I’m sorry I broke you, Slate,” I say walking back around to him, my hands touching his chest as I lean in. “I didn’t mean to.”

  He brushes some of my blue hair away from my face. “You didn’t. You just made me view the world differently. And that’s okay. But Olympia...” I glance up and see his eyes, the same ones I’ve loved for years, “… if you told me you loved me back right here and right now, I would leave with you. The love I have for you never dies, it just changes.” Laying my head on his chest, I hear his heart beating so loudly. I give his words a couple of minutes to sink in.

  “That would be selfish of me. You have a woman who loves you the way you need to be loved. Keep her, but know you will always be my first love, Slate, no one can replace you. We just have to learn to love differently.”

  He nods his head and brushes his fingers through my hair. “So what do you plan to do now you’ve quit?” I shrug because honestly I have no idea. “Well, before I go. Let me take you dancing.”

  “Are you sure your fiancée doesn’t need you back? I don’t want to cause you any troubles or heartache.”

  He shakes his head and pulls me into him. “No, she’ll be fine. She knows our history. How about you go and do what you need to do today, then we can go dancing tonight.” I nod my head and he grabs my hair. “Blue, ha?” HhjiHHe always laughs at me for my choices of hair color. “You don’t need to do this anymore, you know? You’ve proved your point to your father.” I shrug, I’m used to it now. “Any color looks good on you, though.” He kisses my cheek and pulls out his phone as he goes to leave. “Be ready at seven, Olympia, you’re taking me dancing one last time for old time’s sake.”

  He steps over to the elevator, the phone going to his ear as the door closes with him smiling at me.

  “Holy shit! No way, Olympia. You didn’t!”

  Slate grabs at my hair, and his smile is so big that I’m glad I did it. “I did. Does it look okay?”

  He whistles loudly. “Yes. Yes, a million times, yes.” He laughs pulling at my hair. “It’s really your color. I saw it when…” he trails off. He’s talking about after—after we lost her, when I didn’t go out so my hair color grew out gradually. “Well, you know what I mean, it suits you. So do the colors, it will be weird to get used to it being normal again.”

  “I thought it was time.”

  “I feel good, we needed this.”

  I pull him close to me, hugging him with everything I have. “We did. Despite what happened, we made something so beautiful that no one can take it away from us.”

  He nods, kissing the top of my head. “This is true.” We walk out, leaving my apartment, and a limo is waiting out the front.

  “This you?”

  He nods his head. “I ran into a few guys, one of them Darby I believe his name is.” I cringe at his name. “Anyway, they asked to take us out tonight.” The car door opens and Creed steps out.

  Slate leans down and whispers in my ear, “That one is scary.”

  I laugh, but Creed doesn’t even glance our way, just holds the door open for us to get in. Slate holds my hand as I climb in, and I come face to face with Darby who’s sitting opposite of me, with Falcon to his right and Ariel next to him.

  “Blue, what happened?” Falcon nods to my hair.

  Darby’s eyes train in on me. Watching but not asking.

  “It’s my natural color, time for a change.”

  “Well, I’m going to miss the blue, but don’t expect me to change your name. Blue it will always be.”

  Ariel shakes her head and pulls him in closer to her, whi
spering in his ear. Slate sits next to me, and Creed sits on the seat with El next to him. His hand sits possessively on her thigh as she leans over to speak to Ariel. Everyone’s in conversation or listening to one while his eyes are on me.

  “So, you still love her?” Darby says, making everyone in the car go quiet as he speaks to Slate. He straightens next to me, placing his hand around my shoulders and giving me a soft squeeze.

  “I’ll always love her.”

  I smile at his words because I feel exactly the same. I will always love him, too.

  “Why do you ask?” Slate says, dropping his hands to his lap and leaning forward. He eyes Darby whose eyes flick to me then back to Slate.

  “Curious…” is all he says.

  The car comes to a stop, and we all get out. The place is quiet for a dance club as we make our way inside. Echo is in there with Storm already dancing on the empty dance floor when we arrive.

  “Where is everyone?” Slate asks, his hand on my lower back.

  It’s Falcon who answers him. “No one else. We bought the place for the night.”

  Slate raises an eyebrow, and I laugh. “You’re rolling with some fancy peeps here, Olympia.” He removes his hand and walks to the bar while I take a seat in one of the many empty booths by myself.

  Echo and Storm are still dancing as someone comes and sits next to me.

  “Do you love him?”

  I don’t turn to him, though Darby’s dark voice sends thrills down my back.

  “I’ll always love him, he was my first love.” He’s quiet. “Is that answer good enough for you?”

  He stands and offers me his hand.

  “Come and dance with me.” He’s not asking me as a question, he’s demanding it. I place my hand in his warm one. He closes his hand around mine and pulls me to him so fast my body hits his and one of his hands wraps around my waist. I feel his breath on my face as I stare at him. “Did you really quit?” he asks, not giving me any room to move.

  “Yes.”

  He nods. “So, I can do whatever I want to you, and you can’t say no.”