by Abby Gale
I felt the cold liquid on my belly as the doctor placed the monitor beside the bed.
“Are you ready to see your baby?” Edward smiled.
I couldn’t keep the smile away from my face, I was so excited to see my baby. My eyes were glued to the screen as the doctor moved the probe on my belly. Then I saw a dark figure and I couldn’t help but lean toward the monitor.
“Is that-”
Edward interrupted me, “Yes, it’s your boy.”
I beamed at Mike and felt the joy boom inside of me when I saw his eyes shine as he came closer to the bed, close enough to hold my hand.
“Is that… is he… healthy?” he asked. He looked so out of his element and fidgety, not knowing where to put his hands, but I knew he was excited almost as much as I was.
“Yes, he is healthy,” Edward said timidly and rapid thuds filled the silence in the room, “Hear his heartbeats? Strong little boy.”
“Oh my… is this his heart?” The tears were welling up in my eyes as I listened to the heartbeat of small creature inside me… a magic from the darkness.
“Isn’t it a little too fast? Check him properly, doc. Are you sure he is okay? And what about Angel?” Mike glared at Edward.
“I told you hundred times already in the last two days, Mr. Harrison, Mrs. Harrison is alright. And your baby boy is as strong and as healthy as his mother,” Edward snapped.
“Two days?” I breathed out in shock.
“You’ve been sleeping for almost three days. He made you sleep most of the time,” Mike answered.
“You’ve lost some blood, Mrs. Harrison and when you woke up you were so scared it was messing with your blood pressure so I helped you to sleep as your body healed and relaxed itself,” Edward explained to me and turned to Mike before continue, “You should be a little more careful as you have sex. I’m not forbidding it, but just no extreme exercise till the baby is born would be my suggestion.”
Mike nodded and I could feel the darkness behind his eyes. The progress we made was losing its effect, he was shutting himself off again; I grabbed his hand and smiled at him.
“I told you we would have a Mike Junior,” I whispered.
His face was still stoic, but I knew him enough to understand his feelings by his eyes. He was shattered between the beast and the vulnerable boy inside him. I could feel his anger mixed with his concern. As he looked at me the concern had won. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I feel great,” I beamed.
Giving me a paper towel to wipe the gel from my belly Edward cleared his throat. “Well, I’m done here. Everything looks good.”
“Thank you, doctor.” I smiled at him and gawked at Mike with shock when he grabbed the paper towel from me to clean my belly himself. He was so careful and I didn’t miss the way his thumb caress the swell then and there.
Doctor picked his things around the room, freed me from the needle in my arm, and smiled at me. “Take care of yourself, young lady.”
August 19, 2015– MIKE
Edward handed me a paper before opening the door. The moment he stepped outside I grabbed his arm, twisted it, and pushed him against the wall, loving the way his face smashed on the hard surface.
“Mr. Harrison!” he shrieked like a little girl.
“Can I trust you, Edward? Can I trust that you will keep your mouth shut about this house and everything and everyone in it?”
“Yes. I’m a doctor. It is a patient secrecy. I won’t tell anything to a soul,” he said. He was scared and desperate. After squeezing his neck one last time, I let him free without a warning and he didn’t even turn to face me because of the fear. I liked the smell of fear, it fed the beast in me.
“I let you go then, Edward,” I told him, patting his back with a friendly manner.
“Thank you, Mr. Harrison. Thank you,” he repeated again and again till he got inside his car.
As his car left my property to take off the mountain road I smirked to myself. “I wish I could believe you, Edward. Your accident will be such a shame.”
*****
She was asleep when I got back to the room. Sitting on the chair I caressed the baby’s photo. The paper Edward gave me before leaving the house turned out to be the ultrasound picture of the baby.
Baby… such a strange taste that word left on my tongue.
A boy…
I watched her sleep soundly. She looked so pale, so tired, so fragile and she was pregnant. She couldn’t be what I needed her to be anymore. She belonged to the baby inside her than she belonged to me.
Her time was up.
Time to find another one…
October 13, 2015 – Mike
Finally!
A new one came… new blood. At just the right time, at the very moment when I needed a new toy.
I sat in my dark corner, watching her dance, moving that sinful body to the music. She had no idea who was watching her or whose attention she’d gotten.
But I had my eyes on her.
And all I had to do was wait…
Wait for that right moment.
Leaning back in my chair I keep watching the girl on the stage from the darkness. The club was the only place I could get away from Angel. That girl was mine, utterly and irreversibly… till the baby started to grow inside her, till he demanded her attention and her love more than me.
Angel could have been my rescue. The girl who could have given me everything I wanted and the girl who could finally have tamed the beast inside me. But not anymore…
Angel’s time was up and now my eyes found a new target, focused on the girl on the stage.
The beast inside me wasn’t happy, though, knowing the new one or anyone else wouldn’t be like the angel waiting in my bed, but this one wouldn’t be complicated. This one wouldn’t be able to make my feelings a complicated mess. This one would be just for fun.
And I felt a little bit empathy for the purple haired beauty on the stage. She would be the target of my anger, my rage, my regret, and my pain of losing my Angel. This girl would get the beast in full force.
I hoped she could make it a few months at least.
I smirked myself as the music became more seductive. She became bolder with each note.
She danced like her life depended on it.
She danced with passion, with lust, and with melancholia.
She danced like she knew I would be there.
She danced like she wanted to get my attention.
And she challenged me to break her, corrupt her, and make her mine.
Challenge accepted.
Doctor’s Office– February 5, 2016
“Oh, look at that! Where did those flowers come from?” CC smiled at me.
I shrugged as I read the card that attached to blue roses:
I’m still here.
You’re not alone.
-Pax
“A friend of mine,” I whispered.
“Do you want to talk about it? Him, maybe?”
Looking at her without seeing I caressed the letters under my collarbone. I didn’t know what I wanted. People were expecting me to move on with my life… without Mike. I didn’t know how to do that, I didn’t even know if I wanted to do that. His marks were too deep in my soul, his darkness was too comfortable to meet with the blinding light of sun again. And Channing Paxton was that… the sun to my eyes that were accustomed to darkness for so long. He was too good, too pure for a broken soul like me. But his message and the roses did something to me, touched somewhere inside me that I thought was dead.
“He liked me… before all these things…” I told her. Talking about something else other than Mike was a shock to both of us.
“Seems like he still likes you.”
“No. He loved another woman… not this one.”
“You’re still the same woman, Angel,” CC told me with a soft voice.
“I don’t feel like it.”
“How do you feel?” Her voice was back to the professional nonchalance as she tw
irled the pen between her slender fingers. When she did that she was preparing herself for my answer, to study my mental state. It was almost like a neon light over her head to let me know her hunger for a peek into my mind.
“I feel like the shadow of the girl I’ve once been and a shell the one I most wanted to be.”
“The one you most wanted to be? How did you want to be, Angel?”
“Fearless, wild, and happy,” I whispered. Like how Mike made me feel, I thought to myself, but not adding that part.
“I think you’re all those things, Angel and you still can be. I know you feel weak and tired right now, that’s normal, but this is just a period of your life.”
I huffed, rolling my eyes at her. “You’re talking about it like I’m having cancer instead of heartache.”
This made her smile… not like her shrink smiles but the real smile. “Sorry,” she says, winking at me. She started to grow on me.
“So tell me how you feel about all this situation, Angel.”
She was always asking me to tell her about my feelings, but I was locked in this clinic because of them. How ironic.
Taking a deep breath I look at the flowers on my lap and decided to tell her everything. I didn’t know what changed in me, but I wanted to talk.
“I’m broken, doctor. He broke me so good I don’t even know if I want to be cured. Have you ever felt like you were hidden behind your own walls that you didn’t know their existence?” I asked, but didn’t wait for her to answer; she wouldn’t answer it anyway. “That was how I felt, CC. I thought I lived life fully. I thought I knew myself, all my own secrets, but he showed me I knew nothing about myself. I loved being his. I loved his darkness, his cruelty, and his vulnerability.”
“His vulnerability?” she asked, taking notes on her tablet.
“He was broken, too. His scars were deeper than my own… and we loved each other with our broken souls, we found each other in the darkness as there was no light to blind us.”
“Do you think his past justifies his actions, Angel?”
“I know he did wrong things, but even good people sometimes do bad things.”
“Do you think he is a good person?”
“I’m just saying he wasn’t a monster everyone wants to think about.”
“Do you know what was his plan for you if you couldn’t escape, Angel?”
I couldn’t keep my laugh inside. It was almost hysterical. When I could finally get my breath under control I said, “You all think I escaped, right? You all think he would have killed me?”
I shook my head. “He was planning on letting me go, setting me free so our boy and I can live a better life. He cared for us, thought we were better off without him.” Taking a deep breath I forced the last sentence, “He loved us enough to let us go.”
November 1, 2015
My eyes were puffy after another night of crying myself to sleep.
“Ouch, easy baby,” I groaned and rubbed the spot my baby kicked me. Looking around the room I sighed when I saw Mike’s side was untouched… again. He was so distant lately, didn’t touch me or even talked to me. It’d been more than a month since he last had sex with me and even then his mind was far away, his touches weren’t passionate and I knew he would have gone without sex if I didn’t beg him or if he weren’t too wired up. He completely shut himself off to me. Maybe he got bored of me and found someone else, someone who wouldn’t be as broken as me. I didn’t know the reason of the change in him, but I knew for sure he didn’t want me anymore and it pained me more than I could describe. I wanted his passion, his lust, and his twisted love. Not having any of them from him was twisting my guts. I was also scared of what would happen to me, to us after all that. He didn’t desire me why would he keep me?
Going out of the room I made myself some cereal, locking my eyes to the door of his study. He wasn’t at home as much as he used to be anymore and when he was he locked himself in his study, not communicating with me if he didn’t have to. I wondered where he was when he wasn’t at home. When I asked he said he was going to the club, working. I didn’t know who or what to blame for the jealousy in me, but it was there, burning bright under my skin.
After two spoons of cereal I lost my appetite with the image of another woman in here, with him. Would he love her the way he loved me? Would he mark her the way he marked me?
If I used to be the same girl I was before him I would have been glad that he was distant. I would use every ounce of power for my escape, but where I could go when all I wanted was to be with him, near him.
Going back to the bedroom, I lay down on to the bed again, not knowing what to do as Mike avoided me all the time. Tears were falling again before I could stop them.
Damn, pregnancy hormones.
I must have fallen asleep after getting tired of crying. I slowly sat up, feeling dizzy. My eyes were blurry and aching because of all the tears I shed.
“Are you awake, baby?”
I heard Mike’s voice behind me, but didn’t turn to face him.
He moved around the bed to stand in front of me. “Angel? Are you okay? How is my son today?” He smiled like he wasn’t avoiding me for the last couple of weeks.
Kneeling in front of me he pushed the hair back from my forehead and leaning into me he kissed me gently and passionately. I couldn’t hold back my sigh with his touch, leaning into him I let his heat warm me as his touch soothed me. When our lips separated he rested his forehead on mine, caressing my cheek. “I missed you, my angel,” he whispered against my lips. And with a one sentence from his lips I turned into a puddle in his arms. Wrapping my arms around his neck I sobbed. I was an emotional mess.
“Lunch is ready,” he whispered through my hair, but I didn’t care anything else except his arms around me. I didn’t want to let go. I wanted to stop the time at that moment because I was scared. Something was off, something was different; I just didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t feel good… not at all.
“C’mon, lunch…” Mike murmured, pulling away from me.
I searched his face for a clue, for the thing bothered me, but his face was a mask –a mask that I didn’t know. He was smiling, but his eyes didn’t have that mischievous gleam. His smile wasn’t strong enough to erase the tension on his jaw or around his shoulders.
What is wrong?
Alarm bells rang in my mind, but I didn’t make a sound as he guided me to the kitchen. The table looked amazing, he even put a vase of flowers on it, but instead of happiness that pained me.
Something was wrong.
During lunch he didn’t talk and my mind was a chaos for small talk. I tried to force myself eat what he put on my plate, but I was getting distracted by his gaze. Leaned back on his chair he was only drinking his coffee as staring at me. His eyes were pulling something inside my heart, making it hard for me to breathe because of the suffocating feeling around my ribcage.
Was that pain I saw in his eyes?
Finally I couldn’t stay any more silent. “Mike, are you okay?”
“You’ll need hospital, doctors…” he murmured like I didn’t say anything.
“For what?” I asked.
“For giving birth.”
Was he nervous about that? The fact that he cared eased the uneasy feeling inside me, but not quite. “Yeah, Doctor Edward can come again, right?”
“He’s dead,” he said, nonchalant, but before I could make up ideas about his death he added, “Car accident.”
“Oh, that’s sad,” I said, but rushed my next words so Mike kept talking, “Another doctor, then?”
After a few minutes of silence, when I thought he wouldn’t give me an answer, he asked out of the blue, “Do you miss your life, Angel?”
My life? My old life?
“Wh- what do you mean?” I stuttered.
“I’ve heard you have a sister. She must have given up by now, thinking you’re dead, but did you miss her, your life before me?”
I didn’t know what he was going
with this. With the mention of my sister I felt huge longing, but why was he talking about my old life?
“Yes… I missed my sister.”
“What about your life?”
Frowning I tried to understands what he was pushing this much on the subject. “Not so much. I have a new life here, right?” I forced a smile on my face.
“No.”
Swallowing my nerves I take a deep breath. “What do you mean, no?”
“You don’t have a new life here. You don’t have a life here, period,” he snapped, but his voice was softer and even painful when he add, “You have nothing here.”
What was he trying to do?
Was this his last speech before my verdict of death? But it didn’t feel like it. Instead it was like he was saying goodbye to me, letting me go?
Was I too delusional that he would let me go?
If I was thinking he would let me go, then why was I sad like there was no air in the room? Like my world was crashing down on me?
Because if he let me go I would have to leave… and he was here.
“I have you,” I choked and watched a sad smile place itself on his face.
“And that’s close to nothing,” he murmured.
Not to me…
“Did you get bored of me? Have you already found someone else?” I asked, couldn’t hide the hurt on my voice as well as the accusing tone.
His eyes shone with anger for a second, but it died before I could get excited with the passion it would bring. I watched him as he come closer to me, pulling me into his arms to my surprise. “You’re better off without me, my angel.”
“What will you do?” I whispered, placing my lips into the crook of his neck. Even though I was scared he would decide to end my life I was more afraid of losing him. This was sick beyond curable, but if my life would be end I wanted it to be in the arms of my monster who had broken me and created me again like a twisted God.
Caressing my hair he placed a kiss on my forehead. “I’m gonna let you go, set you free,” he rasped. His voice was full of emotion.
