I grab a handful of toilet paper to wipe my mouth, my throat burning and eyes watering from emptying my stomach. I watch as the water in the toilet swirls around, ridding of the evidence. Another wave of nausea hits, sending me into a folded over position once again. I groan when it’s over, falling against the wall of the guest bathroom, my abs hurting from constricting so many times. “No need in writing this Christmas Eve down in the books. I won’t forget this.”
“What are you hiding from me?” I jump, my feet almost leaving the floor. Kross is leaning through the doorway, arms clenched so tight around the top of the frame his muscles are strained. He does not look happy.
I take a deep breath, warding off the nausea that’s still lingering. It wasn’t my intention to keep it from him this long, but after he said he’d never be a parent I got scared. I know there is a very real possibility I could lose him after this, and I think I’ve been trying to bide more time. But the truth is, I’m tired of keeping it a secret. Honestly, it’s a lot of work.
I stare into his eyes, trying to will my lips to say the words. Don’t leave me, my brain chants instead. He straightens. “I’m pregnant,” I blurt out.
“Jesus Christ, Delta! How?”
His anger is evident. It’s written all over his face. My nerves take a turn for the worst. “What do you mean how? You haven’t worn a condom, ever. And I don’t recall a single time you’ve pulled out.”
A look I’ve been dreading falls over him. His voice is accusing, raw, and angry. “And birth control?”
“I haven’t been on it in a couple of years. I got off of it when I stopped having sex. You never asked. I never told. I just took Plan B every time we had sex. Well, every time that I can remember. I ran out before we left for Chicago and never had the option to stop at a pharmacy. It’s not exactly easy to get away, Kross.”
“Do you think I would have still nut in you had you told me you weren’t on birth control?”
“We never discussed birth control! Not even the first time when you plowed into me in the dressing room of the club.”
“Well I assumed if you were whoring around at a strip club you were protecting yourself from a bastard like me.”
My mouth shuts, taken aback. My skin is tingling as if a slap lingers, even though the action never ensued. I breathe heavily, my anger raging through my body, masking the hurt I feel in my heart. “You gonna pin this on me?”
“You should have told me.”
“Like you should have asked if you could fuck me without a condom the first time, or fuck me at all for that matter! It’s done. There is no sense in arguing on should haves.”
He scrubs his face in his palms, agitated. “How long have you known?”
“I’m eight weeks now. I was six at the ultrasound.”
He looks at me in a way he never has. Guilt settles within my veins. “You’ve lied to me for that long? You went to a doctor without even telling me? What else have you lied about? Is it even mine?” he spits.
I narrow my eyes at him, insulted. “You know what? Fuck you!” I surge forward, angry, trying to blow past him. I don’t get past a hard chest blocking the door. “Move, Kross.”
His jaw works back and forth. He comes at me full force, lifting me and shoving me against the bathroom door. Pants drop. Panties tear. I’m filled to the brim with hot, hard muscle.
My head slams against the wood, taking every beating of his balls against my center as he pounds himself inside of me, over and over, no remorse for taking what he wants without asking. I moan, my arms wrapped around his neck.
He thrusts inside and stops, before taking my hips and forcing them to move in a constant circle as our bodies grind against each other. I rock against him, my orgasm already building. I explode, everything tensing and tightening around him.
He clenches my hips and finishes inside of me, his fingers digging into my skin as his head goes to the crook of my neck. “I love you,” I say, unable to stop the words from spilling.
He pulls out of me and sets me back on my feet, repositioning his gray sweatpants, a mask already in place. “Get rid of it, Delta. Who I am won’t change—not for anyone—and there is no place for a kid in the equation. It’s a parasite. I told you to run. You chose to stay. I had you first, and I won’t share.” My eyes well up. I don’t even recognize the eyes staring back at me. They’re void, lifeless, and soulless. He rubs his thumb along my bottom lip, before his lips press against mine, but only for a moment. “I told you I was a bad man. Figure out the cost and I’ll pay it.”
Then he walks away, leaving me completely alone, and with the sound of the front door slamming shut, I break. My back presses against the wall. The air rushes from my lungs as if I’ve been holding it in for many minutes.
I slide down the sheetrock. The tears run down my face with no direction of where they’re going. A wail tears from my throat in a sound I don’t recognize.
He doesn’t want it.
He called our baby a parasite.
He asked me to kill our child.
I knew I could lose him, but I never imagined he would keep me and make me get rid of it like it’s a pest. My hands go to my belly, instinctively trying to protect the tiny baby growing inside of me. Then it hits me. I have a choice. It’s my body. The only way this baby is going is if I go. He wants to kill it then he’ll have to kill me too.
The answer becomes obvious. I have to leave. I have to find my own way. I have to do this alone, even if that means sacrificing every dream I have to make it. I have to fight for my baby. I have to do right by it. It may not have the world, but it will be loved. It will know that someone wanted it. It will know that it’s worth everything, even the man I’ve fallen completely in love with, despite who is he. This baby will know its life meant something.
I’ve walked away from everything before; I can do it again. Even if it destroys me this time. Somehow, I will pull myself out of it, because when I hold my baby and know that I created it, and brought it into this world, it’ll all be worth it.
I walk toward the front door now decorated with a wreath and anchored by two lit up potted trees. I take a deep breath, my fist pausing a few inches from the door. Finally, I knock, and wait for it to open.
Kaston stands on the other side, studying my tear-stained face and then his eyes trail to the suitcase behind me. “He knows?”
I nod, unable to speak. My voice is gone and my heart is butchered inside my chest. I’ve cried until I feel like there is nothing left. I love him, and I don’t want to leave.
Deep down, I think Kross just needs someone to love him. I think he needs someone to remind him daily that he’s worth more than his scars. I truly believe that if he experienced life with someone who treated him like he’s irreplaceable, that he’d learn to love another. The broken man lies beneath layers upon layers of armor, in need of healing, of forgiveness, and to know that he’s good, regardless of what anyone has ever told him.
I wanted that person to be me. I wanted us to work this out somehow. I wanted him to be my forever. Neither of us knows what the hell we’re doing, but my hopes were that we would figure it out together. But sometimes in life we have to lose one thing to gain another. If anyone knows this, it’s me.
I left Chuck to find myself. I walked away from my mother for freedom. For freedom to love without restriction. I needed freedom from the chains I was in seeking her love; freedom from a life of being taken for granted.
One day I woke up and realized life is too short for misery. That I was worth more. I am more. We all just want to love someone in the end. And even more, we want to be loved. I’m tired of giving love and not getting it in return. This is me believing that I’m more. I made a choice. I chose my baby, because everyone deserves to be wanted.
Kaston opens the door all the way and walks outside, lifting my large duffel bag off the walkway, and pulls me into a side embrace, before leading me toward the door. “Give him time, Delta. Kross is slow to open, but when he does, he never lets go. People like that are lifers. He’ll come around. You can stay here as long as it takes.”
“I wish I could believe you, but in this case, I don’t think he will.”
We walk inside the door and he shuts it behind us. “Kross doesn’t do well with change. He thrives on routine. The way he adapts is very different from the rest of us, and I’m sure he has underlying reasons that even I haven’t figured out yet, but for any guy fatherhood is scary as hell. And Kross is nothing like the rest. Remember, I warned you. He will adjust in his own way.”
“What about you? You didn’t look scared when you thought it was Lux.”
His hands go into his pants pockets after sitting my bag down. “That’s not true. Only two things scare me: the thought of losing Lux and the idea of being a father, but I found my girl. Settling down is something I’ve thought about for years off and on. Unlike the rest of you three, I had a father that gave a damn, and one that believed in the sanctity of marriage for love, so it would only make sense that I’m more prepared.”
“Delta?”
I glance up at Lux standing at the top of the stairs. I shrug at her. She comes running and embraces me. Unable to stop them, the waterworks start again. “You’ll get through this. I’ll be by your side the whole way.”
Here we are again—her and me against the world, facing the shit thrown at us full force. I close my eyes, letting the Déjà vu take over, only this time . . . in reverse.
Continue in Love and War: Volume Two.
