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I, on the other hand, am apparently still rooted in dark desperation to cling to only those things that can bring me comfortable certainty. I don’t have it in me to risk my heart again… not with another child. Fear courses through me as I remember that exact moment when I saw Charlie… laying there lifeless. The pain that flowed through my body dropped me to my knees. It was such pain as I have never felt, nor, I vow to myself, will I ever feel it again.
My breathing becomes a bit ragged as the terror of that moment seeps through me. I need space. I need to be away from Savannah and the unprotected life that is growing within her. I shudder in despair and walk back into the house.
Savannah follows me in, watches as I walk across the living room, back through the kitchen, and to the front door.
“Where are you going?” she asks me.
“Out for a drive. I need to think,” is all I say, and then I’m out the door.
When I close it behind me, I pat at my pockets with my hands. Wallet. Keys. I’m set.
I get in the Maserati and back it out of the driveway. Glancing up at the house, I see Savannah standing at the kitchen window, looking down at me. I hesitate for a moment before going any further, wondering if she’ll stand there and watch until she can no longer see me.
We stare at each other… moments tick by, then Savannah turns from the window and she’s gone.
I back out of the drive and onto Highway 12. I have no clue where I’m going. I just know I need to get some distance between myself and the unholy mess I just left behind.
Savannah’s sad eyes haunt me, but not enough to make me turn around and go back to her. I drive south through Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head. I think… what to do? Could I possibly raise a child with Savannah?
No, my thoughts scream at me. No, you don’t have it in you. Protect yourself.
I keep driving, turning off onto Highway 64 and westward.
I drive, and I drive, and I drive. The further I leave Savannah behind, the more the pressure in my chest eases.
I drive west, further and further away.
I turn on the radio, but the sound has no impact on me.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. My poor, dead Charlie.
My thoughts wander. I try to remember what he was like when he was alive, but I keep seeing his swollen, lifeless body. I think about the booze, and the drugs… and I want to get high right now so bad I almost itch. The women… countless, nameless women who I turned to, trying to drown out my sorrows. I can see them clear as day… sucking me off, taking it up the ass for me because I said so, asking me to hurt them just a little bit sweeter.
I try to think of Savannah, but her face is blurry. I can still see all those women though, clear as day.
Just as I can see Charlie… dead Charlie.
Blinking my eyes, I see the sign that says Raleigh, I-540 to Raleigh-Durham Airport.
I never hesitate a second before putting my blinker on and taking the exit.
28
“How many times have I told you to stop stocking the heavy items, Savannah?” I hear from behind me. Lifting my head over my shoulder, I see Brody standing in the supply room doorway, glaring at me. He strides over, grabs the case of canned dog food I was lifting onto a shelf from my hands, and easily hefts it up.
“I’m not an invalid,” I grumble. “So stop treating me like one. ”
“No… you’re pregnant and you were spotting, so quit being so obstinate. ”
Turning to the cart laden with supplies, I start pulling off jars of vitamin supplements, stacking them methodically on the shelves. “I was spotting a month ago. The doctor said the baby was fine. ”
“If you want to keep your job, then do as you’re told,” Brody says, and his tone of voice doesn’t leave room for argument.
Sighing, I keep stacking the smaller supplies while Brody handles the heavier items. We work silently side by side, and I try not to be resentful of his overprotectiveness.
Can’t help it though. I am resentful. Resentful that Brody is doing the job that Gavin should be doing. Don’t get me wrong; I’m very grateful for Brody and Alyssa. They talked me into accepting a full-time job at The Haven, a proposition I had turned down from them over and over again in the past. But even I know beggars can’t be choosers. With a baby on the way, I had no better prospects. Eric certainly wasn’t going to hire me back, and the two ladies I cleaned houses for had already hired replacements they were happy with. Unless I wanted to go home with my tail between my legs and a bun in the oven, I really had no choice but to accept their kindness.
Their charity.
Fuck, that burns me up. That I’m stuck in this position, having to prey upon the benevolence of my friends.
Fuck Gavin for leaving me, without a word… without a backward glance.
Like an idiot, I waited. I waited in his kitchen for an hour for him to come back. Then an hour turned into two, which turned into three. At the four-hour mark, I started calling him, but I got his voice mail every single time. I went to bed that night, slept fitfully, and was back up at dawn to wait for him in his kitchen.
I waited at his house for three f**king days. Like an idiot. Then I moved my stuff back home and cried for two more days. The day after that, I went to the doctor’s and had a blood test, which confirmed I was pregnant, and I cried again. Both a mixture of happy and sad tears.
I hadn’t wanted to get pregnant. One day… sure. But not until I was older. Not until I had accomplished some of my other dreams. But the fact was… I was pregnant and all of a sudden, I had a little life growing inside of me that I couldn’t wait to meet one day. I let the tears come again, pretending to segregate a portion of them for the joy that I would have a baby one day soon, and sadness that the man I thought I loved had abandoned me.
After that day, I refused to cry again.
I refused to call Gavin again.
However, I did go to the post office to pick up Gavin’s mail the following week, only to find the box empty. I expected it to be packed full, and when I asked the nice lady behind the counter where it all was, she informed me that a change of address form had been submitted and the mail was being forwarded to an address in England.
Tears pricked at my eyes when she told me that, but I refused to let them fall. I swallowed hard… swallowing my heart, my tears, and my pride. I pushed it all down and refused to let it back up again.
In the parking lot, I sat in my car and deleted Gavin’s contact information from my iPhone. Within a week, I had forgotten his phone number and now, officially, had no way to get in contact with him even if I wanted.
Weeks.
My life is now measured in weeks.
When I was five weeks pregnant, Gavin left me, and I entered the denial phase. There was no way he could have left me for good. He would be back.
At six weeks, I turned in his post office key and entered the anger phase.
At seven weeks, I succumbed to morning sickness, except it happened every afternoon, not just in the morning. I accepted Brody and Alyssa’s offer to work at The Haven, and the smell of dog poop increased my nausea. I was usually able to make it into the bathroom before I puked. I entered the bargaining phase, and pleaded with God every night to let Gavin see reason and come back to me… preferably on groveling knees.
At eight weeks pregnant, I started spotting and had a mild panic attack. The doctor checked me out and a vaginal ultrasound sent me into a fit of maniacal laughter filled with relief when I was able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. All was fine I was assured, but I was thoroughly immersed in the depression phase, swallowing my tears and hiding my melancholy from my friends. No one could convince me that all was fine.
At twelve weeks, in a fit of morbid and morose thoughts, and in a need to apparently torture myself, I drove by Gavin’s house to check on it. I was slapped in the face by a large For Sale sign planted in the front yard. It was
n’t Casey’s realty firm, so I had no guilt whatsoever when I put my car in drive and gently drove it into the sign, stepping on the gas with more and more pressure until the thick, wooden post cracked and the sign fell over. Some might call that another round of the anger phase, but I called it acceptance.
I was done.
And now… at seventeen weeks today, I spent the morning in the doctor’s office having an ultrasound and was shocked to learn that they could tell the baby’s gender. I learned that I’m going to have a baby girl. I smiled so big, so wide… yes, that was called the joyful phase.
“So, are you going to tell me or am I going to have to beat it out of you?” Brody asks amiably.
“Tell you what?” I ask innocently as I look over at him.
He glares at me and waits.
I just stare at him.
He glares at me some more.
“Fine. It’s a girl,” I say with a tiny squeal of excitement.
Brody grabs me, picks me up, and swings me around until I’m dizzy. He hugs me close, kisses me on top of my head, and shouts in my ear, “That’s awesome. I’m so happy for you. I need to call Alyssa and tell her. ”
When he releases me… sets my feet back on the ground, I do a little happy dance-jig sort of maneuver and Brody laughs at me. We go back to stocking shelves and all is quiet. I start daydreaming of a nursery I’ll never have because there’s no room in the small, two-bedroom house that I share with Casey. However, I still imagine it filled with frilly, pink curtains, pink and gray elephants on the comforter and walls, and plush, white carpeting I can sink my bare toes in while I nurse her in the middle of the night.
“Are you going to tell him?”
My body jerks over the words that crash into my lovely fantasies and fill me with blackness. “No. ”
“Why not?” Brody asks.
“Because he doesn’t deserve to know,” I tell him matter-of-factly. “Besides… I wouldn’t even know how to contact him. ”
“Don’t you have his phone number?”
“Nope. Deleted it several weeks ago and couldn’t remember it to save my life. Don’t want to remember it either. ”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. ”
“I think you should tell him,” Brody says.
Anger threads through me, and I hope the baby can’t feel the terrible vibes coursing through me right now. Turning on Brody, I practically spit at him, “Why in the f**k would you think he even wants to know the sex of the baby? He made it pretty clear he doesn’t want me… I mean her. ”
“Because he loves you, and I guarantee you that he loves her. He’s just f**ked up in the head. I mean… look at what he went through with his little boy. ”
I instantly regret ever telling Brody the full truth about Gavin’s past. It was in my denial phase, because I was trying to come up with every justification for Gavin’s abandonment. Now Brody dares to throw that in my face.
“He doesn’t love me or the little peanut,” I mutter. We started calling my baby “peanut” from the start, and now the nickname has stuck. That may potentially be her nickname for the rest of her life.
“I bet he loves both of you,” Brody says firmly. “And you love him. ”
“No, I hate him. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him,” I say, stomping my foot on the ground with each proclamation.
“I’m pretty sure you love him. ”
“No, I’m pretty sure I hate him. ”
Brody sighs and it sounds long-suffering. “Do you love the peanut?”
I give him a quick glance, just long enough to give him an exasperated glare. “Of course I love her. Stupid question. ”
“Then you love Gavin… at least a part of him. Because that baby is part Gavin. ”
Spinning on Brody, I poke him in the chest. “What the hell is your problem? You spent weeks cursing Gavin’s name with me, threatening to put him six feet under if he showed his face around here again. Now, all of a sudden, you’re his champion?”
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