Page 66 of Defiant
“What are you talking about?” My stomach dropped when she gave me a smile. It was a smile I would see in my nightmares, a smile that could tear me apart, piece by piece.
“My period is late.”
All I could do was blink. No. No, no, no. We were always careful; I made damned sure of it. I knew if she ever got pregnant, she’d lord that pregnancy and baby over me until the end of fucking time. I couldn’t…she couldn’t…
No. Just no.
“How?” I asked, feeling the need to break something. To shake her. To yell at her and force her to tell me she was lying. She had to be.
“Maybe one of the condoms broke,” she offered, shrugging, as if it was no big deal that she could possibly be pregnant.
Fuck it all to hell. I couldn’t break up with her. I couldn’t leave her. Not now…not now that she might be carrying my child. Ugh. Why was I born the unluckiest bastard alive? Why was this my life? What had I done to deserve this?
The mistake that got me into this mess wasn’t even mine.
I had to suck it up. I had to swallow down my hatred for this girl and pretend everything was fine, wipe Jaz from my mind completely.
In the end, I didn’t storm out. I didn’t leave her. After what she told me, I couldn’t. I was effectively a dog on a leash, and Brittany was my master. Made me feel all different kinds of pathetic, but it was what it was. There would be no changing it.
My fate had been sealed.
Later that night, I went home, after spending more time with Brittany. I found it was easier to be with her while closing my eyes and pretending she was someone else. Jaz. If I pretended her long blonde hair was instead black and wavy, if I imagined Jaz’s full smile, it made things a tad more bearable.
I truly was up shit creek without a paddle, and it sucked so bad.
When I got home, I found my dad in the kitchen, sipping something from a mug. He sat on a barstool over the island, his iPad leaning before him. He was reading some article, and I didn’t care to stop to ask how his day was, so I went right upstairs.
My dad called after me, “She’s not having a good day.”
I stopped as I listened to him, but I said nothing else as I carried on. I swung by my room, tossing my backpack in before heading further down the hall to my mom’s room. She didn’t stay with my dad anymore. The nurse’s car was still outside, so I knew she was still here, still with her.
Seemed Mom’s bad days were happening more often, now.
I paused before Mom’s door, hesitating before pushing in. I found Mom sitting on the side of her bed, her nurse readying a needle. Mom had looked better, her appearance haggard. The moment I came in, she got to her feet, nearly knocking the nurse over with the sudden movement and escaping the pointy end of the needle.
“You,” she spoke, staring at me like I was the devil himself. “I don’t know you. Get out.”
The words hit me hard, but I’d heard her say a lot worse before. I tried to give her a smile, tried to act calming. “Mom, it’s me, your son. Archer—”
Nope. She didn’t like that.
She rushed toward me, pushing me, smacking me, shouting, “Get out, get out, get out!”
Behind her, the nurse gave me a smile. “Can you—” She didn’t even have to finish the question.
I grabbed my mom, forcing her back to the bed. I was a lot stronger than her, so her struggling was for nothing.
“Bernie,” the nurse spoke loudly, clearly, causing my mom’s eyes to snap to her. “This will help you sleep. You need to rest, okay?” My mom said nothing, though she kept throwing daggers with her eyes at me, as if she didn’t trust me.
At least I was a distraction from the needle.
When the needle had been emptied inside her, I let her go, stepping back and watching as the nurse helped lay her down. By the time she was done, Mom was out of it.
I met the nurse outside in the hall. “Thank you for helping,” she told me. A middle-aged woman, she’d been hired by my family a while ago to take care of Mom, especially on her bad days. “Today’s been rough, one of her worst days in a while. When was her last scan?”
God, I tried to remember, but I couldn’t. “Uh, a few weeks ago, I think.”
“You should get her in, soon,” the nurse advised me. “I don’t think she’s doing well. If I had to guess, I’d…I’d say she’s getting worse.” She lowered her eyes, her voice coming out in a bare whisper as she added, “I don’t know how many more good days she has left in her, Archer. You and your father might think about looking into an assisted living facility for her, since I can’t be here twenty-four hours a day every day of the week.”
