“Well,” I say, smiling like an idiot. “I would, but your fat ass is in the way.”
His eyes narrow. “What did you say?”
“Oh, I think you heard me right …”
“You wanna start a fight?”
“Oh no, I just want to laugh at your poor intellect,” I muse, chuckling a little.
“Say it again. I dare you.” He balls his fist.
“What? The part where you’re fat or stupid?”
A fist suddenly lands on my face.
I stagger, grabbing my face as I hold onto the car for support.
He actually fucking hit me.
Great.
Exactly as planned.
“Hmrr …” I groan, getting back up again.
“There’s more where that came from, so unless you want to brawl, I’d suggest you get your ugly ass outta here.”
I shrug and rub my jawline. “Yeah, well, see, I’d love to but … I have something to do.”
“What?”
“Well, I have this thing for a girl. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, but just know that I’m not doing this because I’m an asshole. Well, okay, I am an asshole, but that’s beside the point.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he says, squinting.
“The point is … I don’t like fighting, but since you hit me first, that gives me the freedom to defend myself. So thanks …”
I immediately follow up that statement with a punch to his gut.
I don’t know why he didn’t see it coming because I saw his punch coming from a mile away. I wanted him to hit me, so I let him. It gave me an excuse to pound him.
Another punch to the face and a kick in the gut has him lying on the asphalt, blood dripping from his nose.
“What the fuck, man?” he yells.
“That’s for hitting a woman,” I spit, and then I kick him in the balls. “And that’s for hurting my girl.”
“Your girl?”
I lean over him and grab him by the collar, “Hailey,” I growl. “Remember that girl you punished for just being alive? Yeah, I know how you treated her like shit. It’s going to end today. Because you know what’s going to happen? You’re going to disappear from their lives forever. You’re never going to speak to them, and you’re not ever going to try to come close to them again. You hear me?”
He nods profusely as I threaten him with another fist. “I promise.”
“Really?” I raise a brow.
He growls and his eyes narrow again. “Fuck, no.”
And then we start rolling over the ground, fists flying everywhere.
Chapter 26
Hailey
A few hours later
“All set!” the nurse says as I help my mom out of bed.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m so glad I can take her home in one piece.”
“No problem. Make sure to be more careful next time.” The nurse smiles and winks as she leaves us alone.
Lesley’s here too now to support my mom and me as I help her get to the door. Her broken rib must hurt a lot, but the medicine should dampen it a bit. Lesley grabs my mom’s purse, while the nurse and I help my mom into a wheelchair.
“Tell me if you need me to help,” Lesley says.
“I’m good,” I say, as I glance at her over my shoulder. “But thank you for helping. I really couldn’t have gotten through this without you.”
“You two seem like very good friends,” my mom says. “I’m really glad you’re taking such good care of my daughter while you’re both in college.”
“Of course,” Lesley says. “That’s what friends are for.”
As the nurse pushes my mom to the door, someone knocks and enters. It’s a police officer. “Hi, hope I’m not disturbing. I’m detective Fargo. I just wanted to ask some questions if that’s okay.”
“Um … sure?” I say, looking at my mom. She nods. “All right. Where?”
“Come with me, please.” We walk after him into a small office down the hall. The nurse puts my mom’s wheelchair next to me as I sit down, while Lesley fetches a glass of water.
“Well, I’ll be right back then,” the nurse says, scurrying off.
The police officer sits down and pulls out a notepad and a pencil. “So you’re in the hospital. How did you end up here?”
My mom looks at me, and I nod at her before she turns her head back to him. “I … was pushed down the stairs.”
“By her boyfriend,” I interject because she’s starting to shake.
Lesley suddenly comes back, and when she notices the tension in the room, she quickly places the glass of water on the table and says, “I’ll wait down the hall.”
I nod and mouth a thank you to her.
“Does this happen often?”
“Yes, he’s done it many times before,” I reply. “Mostly just attacking us out of the blue.”
“How often did he hit you? Did he hit both of you?” the officer asks when Lesley’s gone.
“Yes. He hit my mom more than once, on several occasions. I usually managed to get away in time … but not always.”
“Okay …” He pens all of it down.
“Why are you asking this?” my mom asks.
“Well, we have your boyfriend in a cell at the station.”
My jaw drops. “What? How?”
The officer purses his lips. “I can’t go into too much detail, but he was found fighting outside in the parking lot, so we took him in for questioning. He kept asking for you.” He points at my mom. “Told us you were here, but when we called, the nurse also told us he’d been violent toward you, so that was a red flag for us.”
“Oh, god …” I mutter.
Finally, it’s really happening.
“So I just came here to make sure that my info was correct.”
“So you have him in custody?” my mom asks.
“Yes, ma’am.” The officer nods and gives her a warm smile. “If you’re telling the truth, it means he can be charged in court.”
My mom grabs her chest. “Oh, god …”
“You okay, Mom?” I place a hand on her shoulder.
Tears well up in her eyes. “Yes, I just … I don’t know. It just feels so strange. Like it’s going so fast.”
“But it’s good,” I say, reassuring her. “He’s supposed to be locked up after what he’s done to you all these years.”
“I have one final question,” the officer asks. “And that’s if you’d please come with me to the station.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Well, since he’s not officially registered as your mother’s partner, we need to make sure we have the right guy. And you can make a statement while you’re there so we can start the investigation.”
“Mom? What do you think?” I ask.
She grabs my hand and squeezes tight. “You’re right. It’s time to come face to face with my demons.” She turns her head toward detective Fargo. “Yes.”
“All right.” He tucks his note and pencil back into his pocket. “Then let’s go.”
***
Thirty minutes later
I thank Lesley for coming to help and hug her good-bye as we enter the building. She’s going back to campus while I’ll stay here to support my mom. She really needs me right now so she won’t relapse into her old behavior. I don’t want him ever to get a grasp on her again.
The officer brings us to his office, at which point he stops us. “I’m sorry, but I need to talk to your mother alone.”
I frown and glance at my mother who shrugs. “Everything will be fine, honey.”
I sigh and nod. “Okay.”
“There’s a waiting room right up ahead. You can take a seat in there,” the police officer tells me, and I smile and then hug my mother.
With sweaty palms, I make my way to the waiting area and sit down. I stare anxiously at the watercooler and the bubbles that rise up to the surface every other second. After a while, a man comes out of another room, rubbing his wris
ts while he’s escorted down the hall by a police officer. When he turns his head to me, I gasp.
“Thomas?”
A half-smile appears on his face as he looks at me over his shoulder. “Uh … hi?”
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“This way please,” the officer interjects, and Thomas follows him. “Be right with you. Don’t leave,” he says.
I roll my eyes and tap my feet on the floor as I wait. It’s not like I can go anywhere without my mom. So I watch Thomas as he fills out a form and gives it back to the police officer. Then he smiles reluctantly and asks him, “Can I just go talk to her for a second? I promise it won’t take long.”
“Go ahead,” the man says, and Thomas nods, then turns to me.
Instinctively, I cross my legs as he comes toward me. His eyes running all over me still make me feel like my clothes are being torn off. But then I see the bruises and cuts on his face and worry seeps back in.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
“What? Oh, this?” He points at his face, and I nod. “Got into a fight.”
“Really …” I muse, narrowing my eyes. “With who?”
He smiles. “Mind if I sit down next to you?”
I take a deep breath and cock my head. “Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” He sits down beside me, placing his elbows on his knees as he leans on them. “Couldn’t help myself. When I saw him, I just had to punch him.”
“Who?” I ask, my lip tipping up into a smile.
“Your mom’s boyfriend.”
My lips part, but I have no idea what to say.
“I found his license plate through your Facebook photos. Figured I could probably still find it at the hospital. I was right.”
“You went through my photos to find her boyfriend?” I snort. “Are you insane?”
“Maybe.” A cheeky smile forms on his face. “Who wouldn’t go mad for a girl like you?”
I shake my head and laugh. “Oh, my god … you did not just say that. Can you be any more corny?”
“Well, it made you laugh, didn’t it?” He shrugs. “My job is done.”
“Is that why you’re here? To make me laugh?”
“Nah, they actually arrested me. Lucky me, I wasn’t the one to dish out the first punch, and there were witnesses.”
“So you made him hit you?” I ask.
He grins. “Pretty much. Glad I got off with just a fine. It was worth it, though.” He rubs his sore chin.
“Why?”
“I just wanted the bastard to pay for what he did to you and your mom,” he says. “Simple as that.”
“So you didn’t do it as a way to try and get me back?”
He cocks his head and makes a face. “Nooo … Why would I do that? Pfft.” He laughs it off and makes a weird gesture with his hand, which makes me chuckle. I try to hide it behind my hand, but he notices anyway.
“But now that I’m here …” He glances my way and then sighs. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, and you don’t have to. I just wanted to tell you that I do care. I care a lot about you. So much that I didn’t even realize it until it was too late.”
I lick my lips, preventing myself from interrupting him because I think I wanna hear this, even though my brain is telling me to stop him. I’ve already been hurt enough.
“I know what you’re thinking. That I’m a piece of shit for stringing you along.”
“Are you? Are you stringing me along? Because it sure felt like it.”
“I was, but not for the reasons you think …” He swallows and looks at the floor. “For a long time, I tried to deny the feelings I had for you, thought I’d only bring out the worst in the both of us. And eventually, I did … because you hate me now.”
“Tell me the truth, Thomas. That woman I saw, the one who’s been driving you around, who’s been talking to you behind my back, who’s been to your apartment, probably many times, and even said you two were ‘over’ … She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?”
“Girlfriend?” He cocks his head and a smile slowly creeps onto his face. “No.”
I grimace. “Your wife?”
“No … She’s my sister-in-law.”
My brows furrow and my jaw drops. I don’t get this at all.
“Actually, more like my ex-sister-in-law.” He looks away. “The point is, no, we’re not dating, and I’m not seeing her behind your back.”
“But … she …” I mutter. “Ex … Sister-in-law.” The realization hits me like a brick. “You were married.”
Chapter 27
Thomas
“Exactly. Were. Past tense,” I say.
“What happened? Did you divorce?” she asks.
“No.” I lick my lips. “A few years ago, she died.”
***
Two years ago
My heart is racing as I see the scene in front of me unfold.
My wife with tears in her eyes, standing in front of the ten-story building window. Our window. In our home. With a knife in her hand.
I plead with her not to do anything she’ll regret.
Thoughts about what I could’ve done differently spin through my head. Why she keeps going back to this point. This unhappiness. It’s always looming in the background, waiting for a chance to spring back up.
Like now.
She’s tired of life.
It’s been so long since I’ve last seen a genuine smile that I don’t even know what happiness is anymore. At least, not when I look at her.
The confident, cheerful woman I once knew shriveled up and died in front of me. But why?
What drives a person to sit on the edge of a ledge and look out upon their death?
Is it the need to go beyond what we can see in life?
Is what she has not enough?
Every time this happens, it’s always something different.
A new house. A new job. This time, it’s a baby.
Or rather, the lack of.
We’ve had the discussion so many times that I started avoiding talking about it altogether. Maybe I shouldn’t have turned off that switch. Maybe I should’ve kept talking. Or maybe I never should have brought it up in the first place.
Because it was me.
Me, who first asked … do you want a baby?
Me, out of all people.
Can you imagine?
I can’t.
It’s not in my nature, and I’ll never be a good father figure. But I wanted to do it for her because I saw that joy in her eyes whenever she saw her friends’ babies. Whenever she cuddled them. I could feel it in my heart that this is what she needed.
For a moment in my life, I thought I could fix things.
Fix her.
With a baby.
As if a baby could ever fix anything.
As if it would magically solve all our problems.
It was messed up. And I know now that this is ultimately what led to her sitting on the edge of our window this very second.
Because that baby was a seed that I planted in her head. A seed that would never come to fruition.
Why? Because her body wasn’t able to. That’s what the doctor said.
For months and months, we tried, and when we got tested, that’s what came out.
It wasn’t me. God, I begged it was me. I fucking begged that it was me, so she could move on, find another man, and have a baby. So she’d finally be happy.
But that was impossible.
And now, we’ve ended up here.
Again.
First, it was the scissors.
Then, it was the tub.
Now, it’s the window.
Every time, it’s something new. Something else she’ll try to take away her pain.
How many more times can I save her? How many more times will she allow me to?
When I step closer, she says, “Don’t.”
I wonder if this is the last time I’ll ever see her face again. If it’s the last time I’ll hear her voice
. It goes through my mind every time she does this, and each attempt is another crack in my heart.
“Please … come here. We can talk about it.”
“No … we’ve talked enough. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“We can work things out,” I say.
“We can’t. Nothing can fix this.” She points at her belly. “Nothing that can fix us.”
I don’t know why it became this way. Why we became so disconnected. Why we became two people just living together instead of one love.
I swallow and hold up my hand to make her stop, even though I don’t dare to step closer, afraid of what she’ll do. “Just give me the knife, and I promise I will do something. We can go into therapy again.”
“We already did that. It’s not working. None of it is.” Tears stream down her face. “I’m tired. Tired of this. Tired of life.”
“Please don’t say that. I need you. This world needs you.”
“No,” she says, vehemently shaking her head. “You don’t. You need a woman who can give you something more. Someone who loves herself.”
“But I love you. Isn’t that enough?”
“No!” she yells, throwing the knife on the floor. “You don’t love me. You don’t love me anymore …”
“Of course, I do,” I say, the desperation in my voice seeping through.
She crawls closer to the window and looks over the edge at the ground below. “I don’t believe it.”
Has she gone this far?
Is her view of this world, of me, so distorted that she can’t even see what’s right in front of her?
“I don’t want a baby. I want you,” I say.
“I can’t give you what you want, Thomas. Enough is enough. I don’t want this pain anymore. I need it to end.” She sniffs and smiles softly, but it’s faked. “I love you, I always will.”
Time seems to stand still as the woman I love turns her head away from me and throws herself out the window.
I scream. Louder than I ever have.
Its hollowness will never reach her in time.
Bad Teacher Page 20
