She grinned back at me. “Just because my family is rich doesn’t mean I don’t know how to brawl, baby. Come on, I think check in is this way.”
She guided me to a desk where a woman took my information and insurance details, and then we had to wait.
“Evie?” I whispered, uncomfortable in the quiet of the waiting room.
“Yeah?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know, but it’ll be okay. I promise.”
She slipped her fingers through mine and I held onto her like a lifeline. The words and faces of the people outside flashed through my mind again and again as the second hand ticked the passing of time in the sterile white room of the abortion clinic.
“I wish Kane cared,” I breathed, so quietly I wondered if she heard me. If I even wanted her to. It felt like we were in confession. Like anything said here would wing its way to some higher being to judge the worthiness of the thoughts.
Evie’s fingers tightened on my own in a show of solidarity that I needed more than air in that moment, and I could have sworn I heard her reply “me too.”
The procedure hurt.
I cried as the clinician did what was necessary, and though the nurse smiled kindly at me and offered words of comfort, the protesters’ words were so much louder in my head. I was stretched and poked and prodded in ways that would have left me blushing if I hadn’t already been so miserable.
When I left the room, Evie waited with me in the recovery room until I felt like I would go mad if I had to keep looking at the same four walls. Tears poured soundlessly down my face; Evie’s hand clutched tightly in mine as the enormity of the day crashed down on me. Why didn’t I find a way to make it work? Could I have done something differently? I went back to the night of the conception. Kane had used a condom. I remembered that because I embarrassed the hell out of myself when I couldn’t open it. We were supposed to be safe if we used one. I remembered giggling with Allie in health class when we had to put the condom on the banana. Cody had eaten his.
What about after? When I found out I was pregnant? I remembered panicking. Talking to mom about what was going on for me was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
Hey mom, I had sex once with my boyfriend and now I’m pregnant and he never wants to see me again because he hates me and is the world’s biggest liar.
She had told me she would support my decision no matter what, then she’d had to run off to her night job with coffee in hand. I knew my mom had been working two jobs since my dad died. She had a pile of medical bills she would be paying off for the next decade, and she was trying to support me to finish high school. I had earned my scholarship and was happily awaiting the day I could help her out with bills instead of being a burden to her.
I knew I never could have given a child the life they deserved, and I’d seen enough kids from the wrong side of the tracks who were in the foster system to know I couldn’t birth a child just to throw them away like that.
This was for the best, I reminded myself, staring at a framed geometric print on the wall opposite me. I wouldn’t forget the being who could have been, though. It would haunt me forever.
As I steeled myself to walk the gauntlet again, Evie told me to stay put while she spoke to a nurse. In low voices, they conversed for a couple of seconds before the woman nodded and gestured for Evie and me to follow her. Down a corridor and around to the right, she pushed open a door marked emergency exit, and there was Evie’s car. I teared up all over again at the idea of making a quiet escape, and the nurse squeezed my shoulder before ushering us out and closing things up behind us.
As I slid gingerly into Evie’s car, my whole body felt as though I had taken a beating. Relaxing into the soft leather of her seats, I let my head fall back and closed my eyes so I could breathe. Just for a minute.
“Do you want me to take you home?” Evie asked gently.
Did I want to go home? Not really. I wasn’t ready to face my mom and any questions she may have, or even worse, an empty house.
“Is it okay if we drive for a bit?” I asked, rolling my head to the side to look at my friend.
“Yeah, of course. We’ll drive as long as you want,” she said with a smile.
We pulled out of the parking lot, turned left, and kept going.
I wished we could drive forever, but I knew eventually we’d run out of gas, so as the street lights came on, I asked Evie to head toward my home while I gathered my mental shields around myself and swore no one would ever have this kind of power over me again.
Especially not Kane Bryson.
Kane
Present day…
I hit her.
The thought ran around my head in circles, like a monkey with a knife, flaying my insides one slice at a time. Layla was wrong. I was exactly like our father, and the best thing I could do was get out of Darcy’s life before I hurt her again.
