by Lila Moore
I doubted that. This wasn’t a good neighborhood. Everyone kept to themselves and looked the other way at their neighbor’s problems. They thought it was best not to get involved with the police. It was a high crime neighborhood and you wouldn’t survive long if you had a reputation for calling the cops.
Luke released me and picked up the rest of the fallen objects and put them in my purse. He took my hand and opened my fingers gently. It was then I realized I was holding something. To my horror, I watched Luke peel open my fingers to reveal a pregnancy test with a big, blue positive sign on it.
He stared at it for a moment, then looked to me, wild-eyed and confused.
I’d taken the test a few days ago. I’d been afraid to throw in the trash. What if Michael found it? Instead I’d shoved it in my purse with the intention of throwing it away later. I’d forgotten all about it.
A distant police siren echoed through the street. Maybe someone had called the cops after all, I thought distantly.
“We need to go,” the man said again.
Luke took the pregnancy test from me and placed it in his pocket. Then he pulled me to my feet and dragged me out of Michael’s life.
Luke
I sat in the backseat of Trent’s car beside Genevieve. She trembled and rubbed her nose. Her dress was torn at the shoulder, exposing the top of her left breast. I started to take off my coat and wrap it around her, then I remembered the pregnancy test. I didn’t want to risk losing it. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Why was a positive pregnancy test in her purse? Did she somehow find proof that Val was never pregnant? No. That was nuts. It made no sense. There was only one explanation that fit: the pregnancy test was Genevieve’s. She was carrying my baby.
Or was she?
She’d been living with Michael these last few weeks, and as far as I knew, she’d been sleeping with him before we’d hooked up and after. Was the baby mine or his? The thought of Michael on top of Genevieve made my hand curl into a fist.
Earlier, I’d found Trent in the club and explained to him that I needed to find Genevieve immediately. The only clue I had was that she was living with Michael. Trent looked at Genevieve’s social media accounts and quickly found a link to Michael’s Facebook page. From there, he was able to look up his home address.
I’d wanted to go alone, but Trent insisted on coming with me. I was too drunk to drive and I suspect he didn’t entirely trust me to approach Michael alone. He was right. I would have killed him if Trent hadn’t been there to stop me.
When I thought back onto what happened when we entered his apartment, I was filled with the kind of fury I’d only heard about. The sound of her scream followed by the sight of her on the floor, cowering before that entitled, arrogant piece of shit made me want to jump out of the car, return to his apartment and beat the shit out of him all over again.
My hand started to shake. I flexed my fingers and made a fist. A sharp pain shot through my hand. I’d broken it. Not that I cared. The pain didn’t matter to me. I’d gladly destroy my hand if it meant another shot at making Michael pay for hurting Genevieve.
I watched her as we drove silently through the city. Pink light from a digital billboard shone through the car window, giving her a strangely ethereal glow. Pregnant. She was carrying a baby and that asshole attacked her.
Did he know she was pregnant? It didn’t make a difference. Nobody has the right to treat anyone the way Michael treated Genevieve.
She rubbed her arms and trembled. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to me. I thought she’d resist me, tell me to, ‘Fuck off,’ then hit me. But she didn’t. Genevieve rested her head on my chest and let me hold her.
I ran my fingers through her soft hair. My hand rested on her lower back. She was carrying a baby, possibly mine. The light shifted as the car drove on. She was suddenly bathed in a searing, red light.
Certainty passed over me. The baby was mine. It had to be.
Luke
Trent dropped us off in front of my place. He didn’t ask to come up. I was grateful. Trent knew we needed to be alone; he was giving us space. Silently, I made a mental note to thank him later.
He waved to me and drove off. I wrapped an arm around Genevieve and led her up to my condo. When the elevator doors opened on my place, she clung to me tightly.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She shook her head not wanting to answer.
“If you don’t tell me what you’re feeling, I can’t make it better.”
She took a hard look around my dark apartment. Her eyes scanned every shadow critically. My condo looked the same way it always did; sparsely decorated and yet always a bit messy. Genevieve surveyed it like she could see something I couldn’t.
“She’s not here, is she?” she asked timidly.
I knew instantly she was referring to Val.
“No. I haven’t seen her in days.”
“Does she still have a key?”
That was a good question. I’d felt too guilty to ask for her key back considering everything that had happened. I’d discovered the spare I kept in the kitchen junk drawer was missing. Val must have stolen it at some point. Did this prove she’d planned to break in my apartment and set Genevieve up? It definitely proved she planned to break into my place without permission. As for the rest… I wasn’t sure.
“Does she?” Genevieve asked again.
Her nails dug into my arm. Her eyes were wide and clear blue even in the darkness. Her mouth was set in a hard line. She looked furious. I ran my fingers through her hair, then realized my mistake. She wasn’t angry, she was scared.
“No. I got the key back,” I lied.
“She’s not here?”
“No. She won’t be coming back.”
Genevieve’s fear of her mother threw me. I knew she hated Val, but I had no idea she was afraid of her. If Genevieve claims about her mother were true, then her fear of my apartment made sense.
To hear Genevieve tell it, her mother was a scheming, conniving monster- the kind of woman who’d endanger her life and frame her daughter to get what she wanted.
Without thinking, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pregnancy test.
“Genevieve…”
When she looked into my eyes, I knew the truth: the baby was mine. Still, I needed to hear her say it.
“You’re pregnant?”
She looked down at her feet; her brow furrowed and her lip trembled. She was on the verge of tears, but I needed to hear the truth from her lips. I lifted her chin.
“Genevieve, is the baby mine?”
Her eyes narrowed. The look on her face was unmistakable: she was pissed.
“Of course it’s yours. Who else could it belong to?”
“You’ve been living with Michael and you dated him before you and I slept together.”
“I didn’t sleep with Michael. That’s why he was so… so… aggressive tonight. He told me he was going to take me out for a romantic night on the town and he dragged me into that strip club instead. Then when we got back to his place, he tried to force me to…”
A tear ran down her cheek. I brushed it away and kissed the spot on her face where it had fallen.
“It’s not your fault. You don’t owe Michael anything. He attacked you because he’s an entitled piece of shit who thinks women owe him something. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent this. What happened tonight was inevitable because that’s the kind of guy Michael is.”
“I trusted him. I was such an idiot. How could I not have seen who he really is?”
I started to comfort her. I wanted her to know that for some people, manipulation is second nature. They do it without thinking and they don’t care who they hurt. Falling prey to Michael’s manipulations didn’t make her an idiot. Guys like Michael know how to tell girls exactly what they want to hear. Before I could tell her these things, she hit me with a gut punch.
“Is this how you felt after discovering the truth about my mother?”
>
I stared at her dumbfounded. My relationship with Val had nothing in common with Genevieve and Michael’s, did it? Val had stolen from me and tried to manipulate me into marrying her, but she’d ultimately failed. I’d cut her out of my life and was moving forward with Genevieve. At least, I’d planned to move on, then Val fell down the stairs. Now Val was back in my life, exactly as she wanted.
“Don’t you see? She’s got you right where she wants you.”
Genevieve stared at me with round pleading eyes. She wanted me to believe her, but there was so much about her that was a mystery to me.
“When were you going to tell me about the baby?” I asked.
“I wasn’t sure that I was pregnant.”
“Gen…”
“I know, I know. I took about ten tests. I didn’t want to believe it was true. I haven’t been to the doctor yet because I don’t have the money, but only one of the tests I took came back inconclusive. The others positive. I wanted to tell you. I’ve been totally blindsided by all this. I keep thinking if I take one more test it will give me the result I want.”
“Negative.”
I was surprised by how disappointed I felt at Genevieve’s lack of excitement. She didn’t want to have my baby. It stung. But, I couldn’t hold it against her. She was young, broke and unemployed. She was living with that bastard Michael. She probably felt as if her situation was hopeless.
“You could have come to me. We can figure this out together. I’m not going to let you or my child starve. Let me take care of you.”
“You don’t trust me. You think I pushed my mother down a flight of stairs because I was jealous. That’s insane. I would never hurt her especially if she was pregnant.”
“Why were you in a mental institution?” I blurted out.
Genevieve turned away from me. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you try and hurt your mother? She said you attacked her.”
Genevieve turned on me, her eyes livid. “No. I was trying to hurt myself and she got in the way. I was depressed and I took some of her pills. I just wanted to sleep forever. But they didn’t work. When she found me with the pill bottle, she started screaming at me. She wasn’t upset that I was trying to OD; she was upset that I’d stolen her drugs. I don’t remember what she said to me- something about how the drugs were a gift from one of her Daddies. They were very expensive and I was popping them like candy. I just snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to die. I stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. I was going to slit my wrists, but Val flipped out and started screaming: ‘Don’t kill me.’ Then she grabbed my arm. We fought. I pushed her away and we both fell onto the floor. She was fine, but I cut arm.”
Genevieve took a deep breath. For a second, I thought she’d pass out. I took her arm and led her to the sofa. She kept talking. It was like once the story spilled out of her, she couldn’t stop.
“She told them I’d attacked her. It’s so typical. She thinks everything is about her. I would never hurt anyone else, not even her. I only wanted to end the pain. The Institution helped me. It was the only place I felt really safe. I could talk to them about anything, you know?”
She looked to me for understanding. I had no idea what she’d been through, but I wanted to make her feel safe. It was in that moment that I realized I’d do anything to take the sadness from her eyes. I pulled her to me and kissed her forehead.
“Are you satisfied?” she asked. Her voice cracked.
I kissed her cheek and her neck. I wanted to smother her pain.
“Are you?” she asked. Her voice sounded different now. It was husky and deep.
“No.”
Genevieve
No one knew about my time in a mental institution. I’d never told anyone, not even Michael. My mother knew of course, but she was too embarrassed to ever mention it to anyone and she hated talking about anything serious. She wanted to pretend like it never happened.
It was impossible for me to forget. For a long time I wished I had someone to talk to about it, but I didn’t think it would be Luke. The circumstances were a mess. Not that it mattered. I had nothing to lose. I’d sworn I’d never speak to Luke again, but here I was.
Being attacked by Michael had left me deeply shaken. I’d never forgive myself for being naïve enough to trust him. I’d been a fool to declare Luke the enemy and run into the arms of Michael. Luke was right about him; he was entitled and arrogant. He thought he owned me.
Luke was harder for me to understand. I could tell he was struggling with what to believe, though I felt as if he was leaning towards trusting me. What is too little too late?
Then there was the baby to consider. I’d prepared myself for the worst case scenarios: Luke rejects me; Luke pretends like the baby couldn’t possibly be his and cuts me out of his life; and the worse scenario of all: Luke thinks I planned this to trap him.
“I’m not my mother,” I blurted out. “This baby wasn’t planned. It’s not part of some scheme. I don’t want your money.”
“I know you’re not trying to trap me,” he said with a hint of irritation.
Was I supposed to feel bad for expecting the worst? That’s all life had taught me.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s my baby too. You’re going to need money. Let me take care of you.”
Luke kissed my forehead. I found myself leaning into him. Pregnant with Luke’s baby. It was surreal. A shiver cut through me. I wasn’t sure if it was from adrenaline, fear or Luke’s kisses. Maybe it was some combination of all of the above.
His hand slid beneath my shirt and rested on my stomach.
“Gen, I’m sorry. This whole situation is… beyond words. I should have taken the time to listen to you at the hospital. I know your mother can’t be trusted, but when I found out she was pregnant I didn’t want to believe she could do something so crazy as induce a miscarriage just to manipulate me.”
“She was never pregnant,” I said carefully.
We’d been down this road before. If I was going to have Luke’s baby, we had to find a way to get along. We may never be able to trust each other enough to be a couple again, but for the sake of our baby we had to be civil.
Suddenly, Luke was kissing me. His lips were firm and soft on mine. I froze. Anger still stirred inside me. It wasn’t that easy for me to forgive or forget how he’d doubted me.
I kissed him, then slowly pulled away. I was still shaking from the encounter with Michael.
“Could I use your bathroom?” I asked. “I need to clean up. Could I take a shower?”
“Of course.”
Luke stood and took my hand. He led me down the dark hallway to the staircase. I paused when we reached the spot my mother had come to rest. For some reason I expected to see some sign of her presence; a blood stain on the floor, or a piece of clothing. There was nothing. The floor was clean. Moonlight cast a dull glow off its surface.
A shiver rocked me. I squeezed Luke’s hand and pulled close to him. He hesitated only briefly before leading me upstairs to his bathroom. He turned on the light and showed me where everything was, then turned to leave.
“Luke…”
“Yeah?”
“I know this sounds silly but, could you stay with me? I’m still kind of shaky after tonight. I don’t want to be alone.”
I left unsaid the fact that I was still worried about my mother popping up to cause trouble. The last time I was alone in Luke’s penthouse disaster struck.
“Sure. I’ll just… uh, sit here?”
Luke’s bathroom was huge. There was a glass incased, walk-in shower against the back wall and a huge marble tub against the right side of the room. He sat down on the edge of the tub and turned slightly away from me. He’d seen me naked before, but I appreciated the fact that he was giving me a bit of privacy.
I looked at the broken strap of my dress and frowned. There was no fixing it and I couldn’t afford to replace it. I’d have to throw the dress away. A part of me felt re
lieved. When Michael had seen my outfit earlier, he demanded I lose the sweater. I’d ended up going out in an outfit that was much more revealing than I was comfortable with.
I peeled off the dress, rolled it into a ball and tossed it in the corner of the room. I was happy to throw it away. It would forever remind me of being attacked by Michael.
I stood barefoot in my underwear. Luke was looking at his hand. He stretched his finger and rubbed his palm. His knuckles had dried blood on them. At first, I’d thought it was Michael’s blood, but I was starting to suspect it was Luke’s. It looked like his knuckles were split. He must have hit Michael really hard.
I smiled with satisfaction. Good. Michael deserved it.
“Does your hand hurt?” I asked.
He glanced up. His eyes drifted over my body once, then he looked back down. Luke swallowed hard and stared at his hand. He looked as if he was having trouble keeping his focus off my half-naked form.
“It’s fine,” he replied.
“It looks swollen. Is it broken?”
“No. Don’t worry about it. Are you okay? That asshole didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“No.”
At least I didn’t think so. I looked over my body expecting to see bruises or scrapes. With the exception of my new curved belly, I looked the same as I always did.
I touched my stomach. We needed to have a serious discussion about what was going to happen next. Now that Luke knew I was pregnant, I felt relieved. A huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. He even seemed happy. Of course, it could have just been the shock of discovering he was going to be a father.
I wouldn’t have to worry about money. Luke would take care of me. There was still a lot to discuss though. Where would I live? And what were we going to do once my mother found out?
I swallowed hard. Suddenly, I desperately wanted into the shower. I peeled my underwear off and stepped inside the glass-incased shower. I turned on the faucet. Jets of hot water hit me from three different angles.
