by Jade White
“You’re sweet,” Shawna said, not buying it one bit. She knew she still looked like a pear, but she was working hard to get rid of it.
Greta was a beautiful little blonde who looked like she might weigh sixty pounds soaking wet and that made Shawna extremely envious and jealous of the beautiful, lithe girl as she sat down on one of the kitchen stools and watched as Shawna got her shoes on and tried her hardest not to look like a spaz while she did it. Greta was kindly patient and Shawna was going to remember that.
“Okay, you know where everything is,” Shawna said, pointing to the fridge and the list of directions they had gone over several times already. “All he does is sleep still, but he’s definitely getting a little more insistent about being fed when he wakes up. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but if there’s any problem, please don’t hesitate. Call me for anything. I’ll probably call you a million times and will drive you insane, but just be patient with me.”
“I will.” Greta chuckled and smiled.
She was the nicest girl to work with and it was the kind of comforting smile that made Shawna feel like she could do this. There was hope for her yet.
Greta came with all the qualifications and responsibility that Shawna knew was going to be vital for her as a babysitter who would watch over Blake while she was at work. Having a babysitter was going to be important for her and there was really no getting around it. Without Greta, her only option was going to be her mother or someone else that she was probably related to and that wasn’t something she wanted to think about.
“Okay,” Shawna grabbed her messenger bag and threw it over her shoulder. She just needed to catch a cab and get to the office. She was still going to be early, because if there was one thing that Shawna understood, it was that things were going to be a disaster in the morning and that she needed to give herself ample time to get ready and get on top of things. “I think I’m all set.”
“Knock them dead, Shawna,” Greta said with a warm smile.
“Thanks, Greta,” she said, walking over to Blake who was fast asleep and kissing him on the forehead. “I’ll see you tonight, little Prince.”
People at the firm were kind to her, immediately bursting into smiles and congratulations as she walked through, feeling like she was a queen walking upon the land that had been denied her for so long. She couldn’t help but feel like these people were actually glad to have her back.
She was everything they wanted in an employee and she had been gone for a month now. She knew she could have taken more time off, but it was time. It was time to get back into the game and really start to get back to work. It was time for her to start getting her hands dirty again and dive in and make sure that her house was in order since she’d been gone.
Everyone was always so nice to her here and she was one of those people who really, truly enjoyed being appreciated and welcomed back into the fold. She loved her job. This was like her second home and before she’d left on maternity leave, this was everything to her.
Getting back in the saddle was something that had been gnawing away at her for the past week. She was getting paid on maternity leave, but she was paranoid that they would replace her or find ways to operate efficiently without her. She had worked too hard to become a valuable and a vital member of their company and she wasn’t going to give up on that. She wanted there to be something waiting for her and when she walked through those doors, it felt like old times.
She attended the staff meeting for the accounting department and was welcomed back, everyone eager to have another pair of hands that were actually competent and caring toward their job. She wanted to be promoted to the head of the accounting department and make sure that there was a future for her out there. She wanted to rise as high as she could go so that Blake would be able to have anything he wanted.
Back at her desk, she felt right back into the rhythm where she’d left off when she went into labor. She found herself staring at the picture that she placed in the frame on her desk and wondering if her little prince was okay and what he was doing right now. She loved him and her mind drifted to him often. There was something magical about babies that she couldn’t ignore. She called and texted Greta all throughout the day and was relieved to learn, time and time again, that her little Prince was doing just fine and that they were having a good day.
Filling out spreadsheets, reading reports, and making sure that everything was getting caught up on her end of the job, Shawna was glad to see there were people eager to have her back all throughout the day. Her boss had stopped by twice and told her that he was glad to have her back.
She smiled and thanked him, putting her nose to the grindstone and feeling the familiar and exciting motivation of actually having a purpose in the company that she was a part of. She liked having her place and being valuable. Everyone wanted to make sure they were part of a team and she felt like she was one of the stars of the team.
The day picked up and as the hours flew by, she began to realize that she had actually missed coming here and putting in her time. She missed the smell of freshly printed paper and she missed the taste of their myriad of coffee flavors that were waiting for them. She missed all of it and realized this was what she was meant to do. There was something so right about the stability and the comfort that this job offered her. She liked that feeling and she wanted to have it the rest of her life. She wanted to feel safe.
The hours slipped by and as she saw the office beginning to wind down, she saw that she needed to take a few deposits to the bank before they were done and she was eager to take them and get out for the day. She wanted to get home early and she wanted to see her little Prince so that they could sit down and have dinner with each other before he passed out after his two hours of being awake.
She stopped by the bank and made the deposits, clocking out for the day and saying goodbye to her boss who once again told her that he was glad to have her back and she was a sight for sore eyes. She wondered how much he was saying that to hit on her or if he actually missed her.
There was something about him that suggested it might be a little of both, but it was definitely leaning toward one way.
She caught a cab, and was eager to get home and see her little Prince once more. She had been thinking about him all day. It was like life was being viewed and experienced through a filter of little Blake.
As she sat in the cab, she realized nothing was going to make her feel happier than walking through that door and seeing her little man who was moving his arms and feet in the most exploratory and reckless manner that she’d ever seen. There was nothing about him that was graceful yet, but he was still so handsome.
“Why is traffic so bad?” she asked the driver, seeing that there was nothing happening in front of her, but they still weren’t moving. She didn’t understand why they were stopped. She looked out the window and watched a bicyclist roll past them and she knew that they were locked into something pretty heavy.
“I don’t know, some kind of accident probably,” the driver said in a thick accent that she couldn’t quite place. She looked over his shoulder at the back of the van in front of them and she knew that she wasn’t going to find out. Looking out the window, she realized she was only a few blocks away from her apartment building and she figured it would be easy enough to get out here and walk home rather than wait for the traffic to clear up, especially if it was an accident or something like that.
“Here,” she said, paying the driver how much she owed him. “Thanks for the ride, sir.”
“Thank you, Miss,” the driver said halfheartedly as he took her money from her.
She threw open the door to the cab and started to head down the street. It was cloudy overhead and she missed the sunshine, wishing that it would come back.
These were thick, gray clouds that promised rain if they were unlucky.
She liked going to sleep with the sound of the rain falling outside and she knew she wouldn’t be that broken up when she he
ard it coming down later tonight. In fact, she would probably love it. There was something about the rain that made everything magical around bedtime and she was more than eager to experience it.
As she walked down the street, she could see that there definitely was a wreck up ahead and it didn’t look like there was going to be any getting through the intersection. There was going to be a jam here for quite a while and that made her feel like she’d made the smart decision.
As she was walking, she noticed there was someone ahead of her, coming out of a building that looked like it was a coffee shop or something, that hit her like a ton of bricks. She looked at the man and felt something inside of her. It was like she was having an actual physical reaction to the sight of this man and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to contain herself.
At the sight of him, her blood began to boil and her eyes began to water as she felt a sudden explosion of pure, raw emotion inside of her, roaring and blasting through every fiber of her existence. She knew there was something inside of her that was suddenly and violently awoken as she saw the suave, handsome man wearing sunglasses and walking toward her.
She stood in front of him as he stopped; the look on his face was professional and polite but she knew that there was nothing even close to that look on her face, as the swarms of people passed all around them. She looked at Victor and she knew there was something she owed him.
When her hand made contact with his face, she knew there were hundreds of witnesses who saw the slap and not a single one of them stopped to say a single word to her. She watched his head spin and the expression on his face was suddenly contorted in surprise and understanding that he had probably deserved that slap more than anything he’d ever deserved before. She knew there was something about him that made her do it. She was so furious at him and she was so angry toward him.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face,” she said to him with a disgusted look on her face.
“Now, that’s impolite,” he said to her, checking his lip for any damage that might have happened from the slap that had nearly spun his head.
She looked at him and could feel the rage inside of her, seething and seeping deep inside of her. There was more from where that came from. She was more than willing to give him a taste of what else she had for him.
“What do you want?” she demanded from him, realizing that he had probably heard through the grapevine somehow that he was a father or somehow he’d been tracking her. She began to wonder what she had gotten herself mixed up in. What kind of a man would get information like that so easily? She shuddered at the idea that she might have had a one-night-stand with someone who worked for the police or the CIA or something along those lines.
She didn’t want an all-powerful psycho in her life, watching her while she went about her business. She wanted a normal life.
“We need to talk, Shawna,” he said to her with a tone of voice that made it seem like they’d been playing up to this point and there was something very serious they needed to finally get down to. The thought of talking to him made her mad. She wasn’t going to talk to him, because there was nothing to talk about.
“You couldn’t even make an excuse?” she said to him, feeling all the pent up anger and rage boiling to the surface. “You couldn’t give me some halfhearted lie to let me know you’d had a good night or anything like that? You just had to pack up and leave? You were done with it? You were just going to wipe your hands clean and walk away without saying a thing. You’re the worst possible person that I’ve ever met.”
“Be that as it may, we have business that we need to talk about,” he said to her with a voice that was patient, like he was running out the clock on her anger.
Well, he was going to need a lot of time, because she was furious at him and she wasn’t about to let any of it go easily. She was going to rip him apart for the rest of her life and there was nothing she had to worry about right now that concerned him. She was done with him.
“I don’t care what you have to say to me,” she said to him sternly. “I’m done with you and I don’t need to have any more conversations with you in my entire life. I’m over you and you’re nothing more than a bad memory.”
“As much as that hurts my feelings,” he said with a sarcastic and playful tone, “that doesn’t negate the fact that you’re going to want to hear what I have to say to you. In fact, it’s vital that you take the time to hear what I have to tell you.”
“No,” she said strongly to him, turning away from him and making her way toward her apartment. “Don’t try to follow me or I’ll call the police. I don’t care who you are or what you have to say to me. I’m through with you, Victor.”
She watched him standing there in the gloomy scene of the New York street, watching as the rain started to come down as he looked at her with sunglasses on like he was some pretentious fool who thought that he was too cool for the rest of the world. She couldn’t believe that she had wasted her time with him. What had she been thinking?
She was a block away when she heard the voice.
It sounded like it was coming from inside of her head and it terrified her at first, but the very thought of the voice was enough to make her want to scream in terror. There was something wrong with her and as she heard the voice inside of her head, she thought she had truly gone insane.
“I know about Blake,” the voice in her head said with a sort of ominous whisper, like it was drowning out everything else in the world and she couldn’t escape it.
The very thought of the voice was enough to terrify her, but there was nothing she could do. There was no escaping the voice and she thought it was hunting her.
“I know that we have a child together. I’m sorry that you feel hurt and wronged, but I had no choice. I had to leave you. I had to draw them away from you. They’re drawn to you and Blake. I can sense them coming for you. You’re in danger Shawna. You need to listen to me. We have to meet and talk about this. There is more happening here than you understand.”
Shawna looked over her shoulder and thought she would see him whispering in her ear, but there was no sign of him. He was gone. She rubbed her ear and looked around her, trying to understand where the voice had come from. She looked at everyone who was passing her, wondering if they had heard the voice as well.
It had filled her with dread and she almost thought she had screamed when she had heard it in her mind all of the sudden. She didn’t know how to describe it. She didn’t know what words would actually capture what she had felt inside of her. It was like the voice was speaking and it was completely Victor.
There was no doubting it and no hiding the fact that she had heard Victor. It wasn’t like she had been listening to headphones either. This was the real deal. This was the real voice inside of her and she knew there was something wrong with her. She needed to get it out of her. She needed to get it out right away.
She began to panic and hurried home, clamping her hands over her ears as the rain started to come down. What had he done to her that had made her feel like she was going insane?
She didn’t understand what was happening to her right now and it was scaring her. She thought she was going to die. This wasn’t just a case of mental trauma and it wasn’t a case of hysteria or anything like that. Victor had actually done something to her and she was not physically well right now. She was not doing well at all.
Opening the door to her apartment, she smiled at Greta who took one look at her and knew there was something wrong. Her plans of having a nice, quiet night were officially shot to hell, because she knew she would be going over the events inside of her mind again and again.
“Hi, Greta,” she said with a soft smile on her lips. “Thank you so much for everything you did for me today.”
“No problem, Miss King,” she said with a soft, assuring smile. “He was perfect. I didn’t have a single problem with him.”
“Good,” Shawna looked over at the bouncer where her son was clearly ha
ving the time of his life, staring at her with his precious little face. She handed Greta her check for the day and smiled at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you for everything that you did today, Greta.”
“It was my pleasure,” Greta said kindly and walked out into the hallway, offering one more nervous glance over her shoulder before she headed on her way.
Shawna shut the door behind her and instantly knew she was not going to survive the night if she kept thinking about Victor and what had just happened.
She was going to need to have some support through the night. She knew once Blake was down for the evening she was going to crack open a bottle of wine and enjoy the little bit of courage it gave her.
“How are you doing, my little Prince?” she asked him, scooping up her son and cradling him.
“He’s beautiful,” the voice returned to her mind and she instantly froze, looking at the tired face of her son, seeing that he was winding down for the evening. “He’s the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen, Shawna. I’ll come to you tonight. We should talk about his future and his safety.”
